That one foolish man
by shoootme
Summary: One foolish man can change the world, like the person found in the escape pod that Kira picked up after Heliopolis went down. SEED X Wing.
1. Prologue

That one foolish man

One foolish man can change the world, like the person found in the escape pod that Kira picked up after Heliopolis went down. SEED X Wing.

Disclaimer; Lancaster is not of my own creation he is however the intellectual property of Sunrise and Bandai. Yeah I know I don't need to put this up but I just want to make it clear who came up with him AKA not me.

Prologue: the beginning of the end

"You never know if some fool is going to change the future."

-Odin Lowe giving one last piece of advice to the boy later known as Heero Yuy

"Minister Darlian this way if you may," said the porter who had just informed her of a call. He led her to some old-fashioned style telephone that had a separate earpiece and microphone, the only reason she knew it was a replica was because it had a video display. A regular phone would have been cheaper for the Earth Sphere Unified Nation (or ESUN as it was more commonly referred to) to maintain on the moon. Someone with eccentric tastes and no understanding of how gravity effected features and fittings must have 'found' the funding, no doubt from something 'pointless' like health care or road maintenance.

"Thank you," she said, when they reached the phone as a way of excusing the porter. Its screen was blank except for the words 'no video input'. This raised her suspicions straight away. If it was work related then the video screen would be on as a matter of courtesy. Someone didn't want to be seen.

When the porter was out of earshot, she pulled out a small device with a loop of wire that 'he' had left behind after his supposed death all those years ago. Supposed, because all they found was an arm, not to mention General Une's supposed mission report that she found on her desk along with a spare set of nappies for them. The device was an external wire tap used to record suspicious phone calls without arousing suspicion from the other end. It had its uses when oddballs called her from very important meetings as this one just had.

"Hello, Foreign Minister Darlian speaking" she said calmly as she looped the wire around the receiver.

"Hey ma-lady long time no see!" Came an all too familiar hyperactive voice that had the little recorder on the floor before she knew that she had let it go, quite an achievement in low gravity.

"Duo?" Relena said in surprise. Like the others, Duo was listed as dead after someone had, within 24 hours targeted and killed all five Gundam pilots. The attack on Duo had been horrific, with a bomb planted on the outside of the colony directly under his house. The explosion had rendered the colony uninhabitable and the remains had been blown up by the Preventers to prevent an accidental operation meteor.

"Yip sorry I can't stay and chat about old times, but I got word of an attack so I thought I'd best pass it on to ya."

Relena stiffened. Of course Duo would not have risked calling her with his assassins still at large, except in some sort of world threatening incident, maybe one involving meteor. Her heart fell as that thought hit her. Duo was not her guardian angel who would call her up out of the blue to warn her, or crash through a window to take down an assassin. That man had left his 'last report' on General Une's desk and an arm in the morgue. There was only one way he would not have called and that was if the rest of him was now in some morgue or in a grave under a false name.

"Well you see, someone big is trying to knock off the head of the ESUN during these talks with those new PLANT class colonies over at L5," Duo continued as if he was talking about the weather.

"How?" she asked snapping back to reality. The Preventers were not the same as they used to be, but something like what Duo was saying was just absurd. '_Absurd? Wake up Relena how many times have you been kidnapped?'_ she thought mentally counting the times Duo and co had had to step in.

"Well as far as I can tell, one of the diplomats has some explosives on their person and of course they're only asked to go through a metal detector these days. I swear the local Wal-Mart has better security than the Preventers these days, and the miners are better armed." Duo said rambling on about how much better OZ security was despite the fact he was stealing Leos as a child.

"Duo!"

"Yeah?"

"Who is it and how do we stop them?" she asked remembering how off topic he could get.

"Don't know" he said sounding as if he was shrugging. "I delayed them by tampering with that Cline guy's shuttle, so they will wait until he gets there if that helps. Call the General, she might have an idea. I can't find her number in the Preventers' database. Damn, the wicked witch of OZ has some nice toys in that HQ of hers," which she did as she had turned the 2nd armoured into something vaguely resembling an OZ division.

She was about to ask if he knew anything else that might help but the conference room down the hall erupted in a fire ball.

Relena would wake about two weeks later and would pull the Sanc Kingdom out of the newly formed alliance that had risen from the ashes of the ESUN. She would set up her own temporary government to keep her country out of the conflict which would become known as the Bloody Valentine War. George Allster, a senior civil servant, filled the position of Vice Foreign Minister after Relenas own Vice Minister took her place in the Eurasian Federation. Those who had planned this had expected Relena to die, but it didn't matter she was out of the way now and after all how much trouble could one Queen of a pacifist country cause.

A/N I know very original a cross over between Gundam Wing and Seed but this is a side project I have been working on whilst my beta was ill with double pneumonia. I am still working on Turn A SEED for all one of you that care.


	2. Chapter One: An Old Hero Returns

Chapter One: An Old Hero Returns

"IT'S A GUNDAM"

- Anonymous Leo pilots' last words

Almost one year ago a bomb killed the leaders of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation. The attack was blamed on the coordinators who, because of birthing problems in zero gravity made up the majority of the colonists. As a show of force a fleet was sent to the L5 cluster. During this show of force, an order was received en route that the mission had changed to an attack on the colonies with nuclear weapons. This atrocity would be known as the Bloody Valentine incident, and would be far from the last committed on either side. Almost one year has passed, and the death toll from the ensuing war is almost double that of the EVE wars; both sides are at a stale mate with no end in sight.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The hatch of the damaged life pod opened and two Earth Alliance soldiers started to help the pod's occupants out one by one. This could be bad, but he could take them down if something happened but he would rather not, hard vacuum was one foe that no amount of firepower or training could protect him from, Duo had found that out the hard way.

"Birdy! Birdy!" came some small robot toy from out of his field of view. Must have been an old one, all the kids wanted were Haros these days.

Following a young girl out of the hatch he came face to face with something he thought he would never see again. He had to catch himself before he uttered those three words that had been screamed over OZ radio channels 20 years ago, a scream that haunted his dreams these days as much as a little girl and her dog. He was not a Gundam anymore. He was a Preventer on long term assignment to prevent war at his own discretion. 'Own discretion' he thought, try running away and cowering in whatever hole he could find. He didn't want to go back to being that monster the world was scared of and yet at the same time called a great hero.

"This is an earth vessel," came a male voice.

"You're lying, there's a mobile suit onboard," said the girl who had been in front of him. She had been particularly bad in the escape pod, as expected the civilians had been terrified. Since that the girl had been right next to him, he was possibly judging her unfairly but he still could not hear in one ear. If she and the other survivors had known how bad it really was, then things would have worsened. On his way out of the pod he had spotted several holes to complement the ones that were probably in the Life Support Unit, but more importantly the life support had been rattling in that special way that meant imminent failure. If they had not been picked up when they were they would be dead.

He looked at the two teens hovering just in front of the Gundam and his blood turned to ice. Kira looked a lot like he did at that age. Kira's mother had not wanted her baby to become involved in war like he was, that was the whole point of the mission; that was why he had been picked, but now here he was. Mission failed!

No, he could salvage this, he thought, as he suppressed the effects of the Barton "special training". The kid was in civilian clothes and was not under guard, so must have been a survivor from another life pod. This raised the question of why an earth warship in a combat situation was rescuing Orb survivors, as an Orb warship would, but this was an alliance ship. The fact that the kid was free to move around was a good indication that he was not being discriminated against, or they didn't know he was a coordinator. He needed to get him out at the first opportunity, but first he needed intel.

"Hey you there, move along," yelled a man in an orange mechanic's uniform.

Cursing himself for letting his mind wonder, he moved on following the other survivors to where several ratings were verifying everyone's identity. This was light security for a warship, but then they didn't suspect that someone was not being honest about who they were.

He joined the line to verify his identity, and flicked through his card wallet to find an appropriate ID. The nearest thing he had to a "real ID" said that he was a citizen of the PLANTs who worked as a technician for zero gravity mining equipment, something that could get him shot if they found it.

However he did have multiple aliases which had certifiable back grounds in case of checks for up to 20 years, with some being as long as 30 years but those were less secure due to the Bartons giving them to him for operation meteor. This included his favourite one that she also knew him by.

Flicking through his wallet he realised that the only one he had that was any good for this mission, was a 36 year old cover that the person nearest to a father had given him.

Name: Lancaster Lowe (hopefully there were no conspiracy nuts out there or he could confirm that one of the most outrageous theories about OZ was indeed true).

DOB: 180 A.C. (thereabouts).

Country of residence: Sanc Kingdom (the advantage of Sanc Kingdom ID cards was that for legal reasons they didn't hold genetic information such as whether someone was a coordinator or natural. It didn't hurt that Relena was 16 years overdue an upgrade to her government's security system).

Current employment: self employed shuttle courier service linked to the junk guild (this was true as he did work on the side with them to obtain some equipment he needed).

Previous employers:

Organization of the Zodiac: 1st lieutenant trained at the Lake Victoria Base (OZ always did need better computer defences. The records were also chaotic with army colonels not listed in some accounts as they were in the wrong faction at the time).

Mariemaia's rebellion (10 years ago this would have mattered, but now it was just another job reference and meant that anyone calling up about this would have to talk to Mariemaia herself. He wanted to hear that call, his 'imouto' could be... intimidating).

Preventers Captain Army Intelligence Branch 401st; medically discharged 200 A.C. (The Preventers used the same computers that OZ did, with only some minor modifications. Hopefully no one knew what the 401st was).

Criminal record: two drunken fights when he was in OZ and some trouble when he was a kid (blank sheets aroused more suspicion than minor offences that were all too common for ex-soldiers even if he had never been caught breaking the law).

Education: an orphanage on L1 with average marks (should have gone to one of those).

The rating that was vetting them slack-jawed at the data he was seeing. This could be bad. Did the man suspect that his ID card was a fraud? Could they have updated the software to recognise such an elaborate disguise or had he blown it with some information?

"Sir, uh," the rating looked awkwardly at his companion who was just as uncomfortable, "I think you're the highest ranking officer on this ship."

Lancaster's muscles relaxed then stiffened as his words sank in. Highest ranking officer on the ship? A naval captain was OF-5 whilst an army captain was OF-2 three ranks lower than the naval captain, not taking in to consideration the senior service. With this ship being of a new design and with a Gundam onboard he suspected that there would be a rear admiral hiding somewhere calling the shots.

The only explanation was that casualties must have been higher than even ZAFT made them out to be. He needed to keep his head down or they might start looking for volunteers and he promised her not to kill again. That was one thing he had kept from his previous alias he was a pacifist, if anyone asked it was because of his arm but really it was because no man should have this much blood on his hands.

"I was medically discharged," he said flexing his prosthetic arm that emitted a low whine of motors, the arm he had lost on the final mission he had completed for the Preventers. He had received a new prosthetic that the manufacturers claimed would react at the same speed as his real arm, being used to manufacturers' claims from the military he was surprised when it did indeed keep up with his real arm. It was one of the few on the market that would let him pilot a shuttle alone and was even EMP hardened, could be connected to his laptop via bluetooth and be controlled remotely much to the amusement of his co-workers.

"Um, sorry, Sir," the rating looked abashed, "err, everything looks fine. You're billeted in corridor B bed 4."

Lancaster grunted an acknowledgement and went to find his assigned bunk.

o0o0o0o0o0o

"Well sure I drove the thing twice, but that was because I didn't have any choice. Look, I don't want people to say it makes me a soldier or anything." Kira all but yelled at Mu who just shook his head in exasperation. Didn't the kid know how screwed they were? No, he knew alright he had just had enough and wanted out. Only way that would happen though was if ZAFT blew up the ship.

"So when the fighting starts again are those going to be your last words?" asked Mu rhetorically knowing he had him. Kira was smart, he may not like any of this but he didn't want to die.

"A soldier unwilling to fight is a liability to his comrades, this is why conscription has not been used by either ZAFT or the Earth in this war," came a voice from behind him. Turning around he came face to face with a man who was giving him a look that was colder than liquid helium.

Dam it thought Mu, he didn't have time to deal with civilians ganging up on him.

"Unfortunately Kira here is the only one capable of piloting our Mobile Suit," Mu explained, hoping to avoid a conflict.

The man looked over Mu's shoulder and asked Kira something about how the strike operating system worked that was well above Mu's understanding.

Kira's reply was just as nonsensical to Mu, and probably contained some classified data.

"So like the Leo and Aries then." Said the man after Kira had stopped talking about how the programming worked.

Kira looked unsure, "I have only seen those in museums."

The stranger looked back at Mu. "You have two people capable of piloting a mobile suit. My combat record is more extensive than the current pilot's."

"What's your record" asked Mu

"I was at the Lake Victoria Base for basic in the Specials, then served in the EVE War as a Leo pilot. I was discharged about 16 years ago from the Preventers, however I still hold a valid labour and shuttle licence."

"What was the nature of your discharge?" asked Mu hoping he didn't have to deal with an oddball who had been kicked out for shooting the wrong person.

"Medical," he said flexing his arm which emitted a low whine of gears, Mu realised for the first time that it was actually an artificial replacement. He had known several of his comrades had got replacement limbs after their Moebius had been hit, but all had got the cheapest one on the market. That claw was only marginally better than a pirate's hook.

"Hey I know you, you were that man sitting next to me in the pod," Said a red-haired girl Mu had not yet been introduced to.

"Correct," said the man, his tone not getting any warmer.

"Well mr?" asked Mu.

"Lowe," he said.

"Well Mr Lowe I would have to clear it with the Captain but she is very busy right now so I don't know if she has the time to speak with me," said Mu. He didn't trust the man. He could not place it but something was just wrong with this man, something about those eyes he suspected.

"Thank you Major," Mr. Lowe looked at Mu's name tag "La Flagger."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"So this one armed man said he was a pilot?" asked Murrue trying to keep a professional air, despite being out of her depth.

"Yeah but there was something off about him. I said I would bring it to your attention but I told him that you were very busy," Mu said looking worried.

"Thank you," she replied.

"What was his name again?" asked Ensign Badgiruel holding a data slate.

"Lowe didn't get a first," Mu said.

"Found him, Lancaster Lowe age 36 a former OZ who went on to be a Preventer," she said then frowned, "there's a note here that said he was a member of the Mariemaia Rebellion but was cleared to work in the Preventers 401st army intelligence part of the Sanc kindom defence force. He must have been one of those Treize Worshippers the OZ had. Anyway he looks clean."

"Who was his commanding officer?" asked Murrue.

Ensign Badgiruel consulted her data pad, "His OZ CO was Lucrezia Noin, she was K.I.A 10 years ago during the Phobos accident on Mars. His Preventers CO was… Colonel Chang Wufei"

Everyone knew of the Phobos Incident, it was the biggest disaster in colonial history, hundreds dead with many more dying from minor wounds that could not be treated with the limited supplies and no gravity. It had stopped the ESUN expansion into colonising other planets stating that the long travel times for rescue workers would make it too risky. This had meant that the only colony outside the Earth's sphere was a single small colony orbiting Mars which was privately funded by a survivor.

"Jesus!" exclaimed Mu.

"What?" Murrue asked.

"I thought I recognised the 401st. That was a special operation regiment based in the Sanc kingdom, most of the command staff were the Gundam pilots' or soldiers who were one man armies."

"But the ESUN didn't have any Special Forces, that was the point" said Murrue not able to comprehend the contradiction.

"You don't put all 5 Gundam pilots in a Line Regiment and besides there's no such thing as a Sanc Kingdom army. They are all pacifists," said Mu.

"I didn't know that the Gundam Regiment was the 401st," said Ensign Badgiruel in a quiet voice.

"You heard of them before?" asked Mu.

Ensign Badgiruel nodded, "my mother was taken hostage by a radical White Fang splinter group. She said that it was Wufei who rescued her."

Murrue blinked, "am I missing something here?" she asked.

"The names of the Gundam pilots were never made public but they got out anyway. You may know Wufei as Gundam pilot 05. He had one of the highest body counts out of all the Gundams, destroying an entire fleet single handed during the early days of operation meteor, and then mauling a second during an assassination attempt on Treize," said Mu looking serious. "The man whom I talked to must be something special if he was asked to join the Regiment after the Mariemaia Rebellion."

"Is there any reason why this man should not be allowed to pilot the Strike?" Murrue asked, thankful that whatever Higher Being was out there had finally cut them some slack. Someone who was asked to be in a Regiment reserved for one man armies whose leader had devastated two fleets could turn their fortunes around. She tried to imagine how many sailors would have died if a fleet was wiped out and failed. She had taught kids the basics of the Gundams and how they had laid waste to all sides even the "goodies" but were still the heroes of the war. She had found that most kids never grasped it and she had to simplify the assassinations and the controversy surrounding them. They were more likely to find out who shot Heero Yuy then who killed the Gundams with the endless numbers of conflicting reports.

"Captain I would recommend that this man be placed in charge of the Strike. The current pilot is inexperienced and has received no military training; Mr Lowe is a veteran with multiple kills to his name no doubt," Said Badgiruel sounding a bit too eager.

"I would recommend against it," said Mu looking uncomfortable. "There was something off about him; he may have been through too much."

"Ensign Badgiruel is there anything in his record that could hint at any problems?" she asked knowing that she would understand what she meant by "problems".

"No Mam, he's been in some bar fights but that was when he was in OZ, there's nothing to indicate any mental health issues like PTSD."

"Other than that he could be a Treize botherer," said Mu under his breath.

"Then I will go with your recommendation Ensign Badgiruel and inform Mr Lowe." Murrue saw the unease this brought Mu, so she raised her hand to forestall his protest. "I will talk to him first to see if there's anything wrong with him."

She could not make command decisions on whims or her emotions which were telling her to go with Major La Flagger, but Mu was technically senior to her, and it would be appropriate for her to take his advice.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

He knew he had overdone it with the Hawk of Endymion, but he had let his emotions control him as Odin had said, and things looked as if they were paying off as Lancaster spotted a female Lieutenant searching for someone among the civilians.

"Are you Mr Lowe?" she asked when she got close, tucking away a data slate.

"Yes Mam," he said trying to sound as professional as he could. It was hard as he had never been in any official army.

"I want to ask you some questions before I make a decision about your request," she said.

"Certainly" he replied wondering why a Lieutenant was making the decision when the Hawk of Endymion was senior to her.

"Why do you want to pilot a mobile suit again after your injuries?" she asked.

"I don't want to," which was true, he didn't want to and he still didn't know why he had done it, he had just had an impulse to step in. That seemed to surprise her as much as it did him, so he needed to say more, but he didn't know why he was doing this. Time to do what any good infiltration expert would do; muddy the truth. "We fought and died in the EVE wars so kids like that one you had piloting the Strike didn't have to fight." He realised after he had said it that no one had told him the mobile suit's name; he had liberated that information from the ship's mainframe.

"So you are doing this for Kira's sake?" she asked, ignorant of his screw up.

Yes he was but what he was doing was beyond his mission parameters, still he had lost his arm, his identity, his peace and most of all her, to save that kid from what he had been put through. However only a few people knew what he had done, so he said instead, "life is cheap; you don't realise how cheap until you have been on the battlefield."

"I know you were in the 401st, could you tell me about your time in the Regiment?" She asked.

She had put two and two together. This could be a problem. "Sorry Mam, but if you have not been briefed about my deployments already then I can not divulge that information," he said not lying, as that was the official line he and every 'other' soldier in the Regiment would say to anyone asking questions.

She nodded, looking disappointed. "How did you lose your arm?"

He looked down, trying to remember his cover, then remembered she would not have the clearance to check out this fact. "I was in an operation at the time, that's all I can say Mam," he replied honestly, as he did lose it in an operation just not the kind she would presume.

She looked at the ground worried, "I need to know something about the people under my command if I am to make a decision about them."

"I am sorry Mam, but most of my service record after the Mariemaia Rebellion is classified above a lieutenant's pay level," he said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

"Even if the lieutenant is the Captain of this vessel?" she asked, sounding as if she had been insulted. This confused him; however Lancaster latched onto what she had said, rather than how she had said it. He however knew that lieutenants were too low rank to hold command of a ship like this; if true then he needed to bail Kira out fast before ZAFT found the ship. The last time he had heard of something like that was when Chang had devastated that fleet on day one of Meteor, where a midshipman had been in command of a destroyer because everyone else in the chain of command was dead or incapacitated. Too bad the guy didn't know he was in command until he was in a lifeboat watching his first command go down.

He indicated a side passage. "How?" he asked when they were inside and he was sure that no one could hear them, the civilians were jumpy as it was.

She told him how ZAFT had infiltrated the docks where it was all hands on deck to get the supplies loaded for departure and had attempted to blow up the Archangel. She talked about how ZAFT had got four out of the five 'x' weapons with the 5th only being saved from capture by a boy in the wrong place at the wrong time. The boy had taken control of a mobile suit and downed an enemy in his first engagement. Kira had in one day almost made ace with two kills on suits and a third crippled.

With a start the words of the enlisted man came back to him, "Hmm sir I think you're the highest ranked officer on this ship." He was other than the Major the highest ranking officer on this ship due to length of service, because he had been promoted to the 'rank' of Captain as a formality by the General after the Mariemaia Rebellion. The navy was the senior service so he should be junior to this Lieutenant. It didn't make much sense to him but maybe it didn't make much to them either.

"I can't talk about what I did in the Preventers, that's classified need-to-know and you don't want to know about wet works," he said putting emphasis on the last part to get her to understand that it was a no-go area.

"Ok" she said thinking for a moment then asking "what about the Mariemaia Rebellion?"

Lancaster nodded. "Soldiers were treated like dirt after the EVE war, people didn't want to know you, employers didn't want to hire you and the media demonised us. A friend from my old squadron said he could get me work at L4 on a colony under construction. I found out what it was when I got there, they wanted to make a world for warriors, where we would be respected, at least that was what they told us and Treize's daughter." He involuntarily clenched his fists remembering what they had done to his imouto.

"So you joined this terrorist group because of how you were treated," she said.

"Yes" he replied. There were two stereotypes for the Mariemaia Rebellion, the first was the disgruntled soldier, the second was a Treize botherer who in Lancaster's mind should be institutionalised. He didn't think either were justified in their actions but it was what people expected him to say.

She was going to ask something else but the intercom buzzed. "Will the Captain report to the bridge immediately."

She cursed under her breath and headed down the corridor, after a second of thought Lancaster followed her.

"I haven't made my decision yet," she said.

"Enemy silhouette detected; all hands level one battle stations, Kira Yammamoto to the bridge."

"ZAFT just made theirs." He said hoping he was not too late to save Kira from getting involved.

"Very well then, you're the new pilot of the Strike. Any questions?" she asked.

He hesitated he needed to know the capabilities of the mobile suit, the number of enemy combatants and a hundred other bits of information about the ship but he didn't have time. But there was one question he did have time for, "what is your name?"

"Murruer Ramius," She said as they got into an elevator.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Large heat source detected, indicating a warship engine, distance 200 yellow, 33, 17, mark 02 charley, course 0, shift 0," came the operator of Archangel's sensor station.

"Beside us? But it's heading in the same direction," said Mu not wanting to believe that ZAFT had found them already.

Behind him sitting in the captain's chair Ensign Badgiruel picked up the hand set embedded in the arm of the chair. "Will the captain report to the bridge immediately."

"Object out pacing us identified as a Nazca class," came the sensor operator quietly as if he was afraid ZAFT might hear him if he spoke any louder.

Mu knew what was happening even if he didn't like it. "They are positioning themselves ahead of us to cut us off at the pass," he said.

"Where's their Laurasia class?" barked Badgiruel.

"Hold on a moment. There's a heat source 300 to stern. When did that appear?" asked the operator. No doubt he had been fixated on the Nazca class and had missed it.

It was clear now that they were caught in a pincer manoeuvre with the Nazca in front blocking the road ahead and the Laurasia stopping them from retreating. Things looked bad, he had been hoping against all hope to reach Artemis without a fight but Le Creuset always seemed to be two steps ahead of him.

"We know that the Laurasia class will eventually overtake us, but if we use our engines to outrun it the Nazca class will double back and come right back at us. Hey, bring up a space map of the area," Mu said, a plan forming in his head.

"You got a plan?" asked Badgiruel.

"I am getting ready to think about it" he said, studying the map.

If they took out the Laurasia class then they would have a straight shot at getting to Artemis. The problem was any engagement would have to be brief, because the size of the Archangel's crew, and the firing arks of the capital weapons, would mean that they could not fight two ZAFT ships attacking from opposite vectors. The Positron Cannon would do it but the Archangel would need to be close enough to prevent the other ship from dodging the shot. If they did that, however, then the two ZAFT ships would be in range and their mobile suit escort would never let them that close. So how to hold the ship still? He could do it with his Zero, a close-in firing pass, but he would need to get close without being seen and Kira would have to hold out against any assault until he returned. Risky but it could wo-

"Looks workable," said someone from behind him.

Mu spun around to look at Mr. Lowe, he had not heard his approach. The man was just looking over the plots he had been working on nodding appropriately; behind him was Ramius, who gave him an apologetic look.

"How many remaining mobile suits does ZAFT have?" asked Mr. Lowe not taking his eyes off the plot.

"We got one Ginn in the initial engagement along with damaging a second and a CGUE. They won't be back in the fight. In the second battle we got three more Ginns, so if they have a standard load out, then there should be six more Ginns left," said Ramius.

"I only saw five Ginns during the attack," said Mu.

"Five? But that's half of what those craft are capable of carrying," said Badgiruel.

"It makes sense. If they knew how many suits we had, they could leave a space for them in the hangar, and then that would also leave enough room for the boarding craft those commandos used to hit the ship, or for any spares they grabbed from the first convoy," said Mu.

"So it's a bluff?" asked Mr. Lowe.

"No, they have four mobile suits left, the X weapons," said Mu.

"They would really throw them into the mix?" asked Mr. Lowe.

"They did last time with the Aegis," said Mu.

"They were willing to risk the destruction of a neutral colony to stop this ship. They're desperate, they know we won't give up this ship," stated Ramius.

"How was Heliopolis destroyed?" asked Mr. Lowe filling the silence this declaration left.

"They came after us with type D equipment. It's normally used to take down fortifications such as orbital outposts; the colony's main support structure was caught in the crossfire," said Ramius.

Mu had the perfect angle to see Mr. Lowe's face, well, more his eyes; his face didn't seem to be capable of showing emotion. Those eyes seemed to be shouting something but Mu was damned if he knew what it was they were telling him. The man leaned over Mu and started typing rapidly on the keyboard until the specs of type D equipment filled the screen.

"Type D equipment is not anti-fortress ordinance, it's the old NNCBs," stated Mr. Lowe in a tone that was even more emotionless than normal.

"NNCB?" asked Mu wondering what Mr. Lowe was on about. Everyone knew that type D equipment was the designation used for anti-fortress ordinance; even the alliance used the same designation.

"Non-nuclear colony busters; that ZAFT commander is not desperate, he is insane," said Mr. Lowe.

"Non-nuclear colony busters? What is-" said Ramius but was cut off by Mr. Lowe.

"A method of destroying a de-orbiting colony before it hits Earth; the weapons used on Junius Seven by the alliance were the nuclear option. You get them into a colony and fire at the main support to break it up," said Mr. Lowe staring at the screen.

"Captain Lowe how do you know of this?" asked lieutenant Ramius.

"Because," he said slowly flicking throw the data of the battle, "I was entrusted with the operation of both whenever a large orbital facility was seized by rebel groups in case they attempted to drop the colony on Earth. That is why I can't talk about the 401st."

The bridge was stunned into silence. Mu felt even more uncomfortable about this man covering his back in a fire-fight. He didn't know what the look in Mr. Lowes eyes was but he knew it would be the death of him.

Kira chose this time to float onto the bridge.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The bridge was silent when Kira entered it; the only sound was Mr. Lowe as he typed on a keyboard over Mu's shoulder.

Part of Kira was relieved to see Mr. Lowe there; it would mean that he didn't need to fight again. Another part felt guilty for getting someone else involved. His guilt was not helped by the video playing on the monitor in front of Mr. Lowe; it was the battle he had fought on Heliopolis, the one that had weakened the colony to the point where it collapsed.

"Can you log me onto a spare console" said Mr. Lowe breaking the spell of silence in the room.

"Sure," Mu said moving over to a spare computer and turning it on.

"Uh Miss Ramius," said Kira letting the Captain know he was on the bridge.

"Ah Kira, Mr. Lowe has taken over piloting the Strike, so you are free to go back with the other civilians," said the Captain.

"Skipper if I may," interrupted Mr. Lowe.

"What is it?" asked the Captain.

"We are short on time and I need to know everything about the Strike and the ZAFT forces I will face during the mission," said Mr. Lowe.

The Captain nodded. "Can you help Mr. Lowe for the time being however?" she asked.

Kira nodded and floated over to where Mr. Lowe was working. The console that Mr. Lowe was looking at showed the readouts on the capabilities of the four other x weapons along with video feeds from the battle.

"The production specs don't match the battlefield performance observed," stated Mr. Lowe, almost sounding frustrated as he pointed at the Strike dodging a shot from a GINN.

"I modified the programming of the Strike. ZAFT would have had to do the same to get their machines to move," said Kira.

"So this information is inaccurate," said Mr. Lowe

"Yes, speed, manoeuvrability and accuracy should be increased by about a factor of three unless they used the programming from one of their regular mobile suits, then I could not tell you how it would perform," said Kira.

"No, they would not have used a GINNs program. All the architecture in the CPU is different; computers from the PLANTs have no north bridge."

"They could emulate it," Kira replied remembering how he solved that problem during his last assignment.

"How do you know so much about mobile suit programming?" asked Mr. Lowe almost looking puzzled.

Kira had thought about this a lot since he had first piloted the Strike. "Well... I am a co-ordinator," he said hesitantly.

Mr. Lowe just looked at him. "That's an excuse used by the weak to justify their weakness, or to hide it rather than becoming strong themselves."

Kira blinked, he had never heard someone put it like that before. "Well our group project at college this year was on a proto labourer, and I have been doing a lot of extra work to get my marks up. I... kind of messed up last semester."

Mr. Lowe nodded as if that explained it, and went back to looking through the data on the captured ZAFT units. Reaching the Blitz, Mr. Lowe muttered as if asking a question "Mirage Colloid?"

Kira racked his brains but could not remember seeing anything about that in the Strike's programming. Finally he said, "I don't know what that is."

"It's a camouflage system that can-" started the Captain but she was interrupted by Mr. Lowe raising a hand to forestall her.

"I saw it in action during the EVE wars," said Mr. Lowe.

"You did? But I thought it was state of the art technology like the phase-shift armour," said Ramius.

"They said it was two decades ahead of its time so it makes sense," said Mr. Lowe not looking away from the monitor as he flicked through the files on the Duel and Buster. He didn't give them a second glance. Kira was glad for this as he didn't know anything about the other X weapons as he had only been involved with the Strike. Mr. Lowe however stopped on the Aegis, Athruns mobile suit; it dawned on Kira that this man would have no compunction not to kill Athrun. Kira's guilt was now turning into concern about letting Mr. Lowe pilot the Strike; concern for Athrun, but how did he protect Athrun from this man? It was not like he could order him to spare Athrun; in this man's eyes he was the enemy.

"This phase shift-armour how strong is it?" asked Mr. Lowe snapping Kira out of his thoughts.

"It's invulnerable to kinetic weapons; when powered up the armour is out of phase with the rest of the universe."

"The armour is only active when it's powered?" asked Mr. Lowe receiving a nod from Kira.

"How long will the batteries give me?" asked Mr. Lowe.

"The counter starts off at 999 seconds," Kira replied helpfully.

"That's just over 16 minutes." stated Mr. Lowe flatly.

Kira ran the math in his head and came to the same conclusion and nodded. "But that's only if you don't move or fire," he said.

"The weapons do not have their own power supply or ammo?" asked Mr. Lowe.

"No, and kinetic impacts will also drain the armour faster," Kira said.

Mr. Lowe gave him a funny look, "this suit is not something an amateur should be able to fight with, it's too unforgiving."

"It's not really that hard-" Kira began to say but Mu cut him off.

"That's all the vectors worked out," said Mu from the Navigator's seat.

"How long until our launch window? Asked Mr. Lowe.

"Ten minutes," replied Mu.

"We better get moving then. Kira I am going to need you to help familiarise me with the controls," said Mr. Lowe.

Kira followed both Mr. Lowe and Major La Flagger to the elevator which opened to show all of his friends wearing alliance uniforms. No, not all of them. Flay was not there; he vaguely wondered if she would be ok on her own and should he go keep her company now he didn't have to pilot the strike.

"Kira," said Tolle.

"Tolle? Guys?" Kira asked, confused.

"Kira hi," said Tolle.

"What's the deal with those earth force outfits?" asked Kira.

"We decided to help out around the ship, they are under-manned right?" said Sai.

"Yeah they would not let us on the bridge without these uniforms," said Kuzzy.

"Yeah but don't you think the ZAFT uniforms are cooler looking? We don't even get a rank badge so these seem kind of lame." Said Tolle

"Ok wise guy," said Mr. Chandra.

"We are in a combat zone; cut the chatter," barked Badgiruel.

"You always do the fighting; thought you could use a little company," said Tolle.

"But-" Kira was cut off by Badgiruel glowering at them with an intensity that could put the sun to shame.

"Come on kid we haven't got all day you know," said Mu from the elevator.

"Right," replied Kira as he got into the elevator.

"See ya," said Tolle as Kira gave a backwards glance at his friends, his friends who had just volunteered to help out because they thought he was still the pilot of the Strike.

o0o0o0o0o0o

The plan looked solid; he would hold the line and keep ZAFT distracted so the Major could hold the Nazca still long enough to hit it with the positron cannon. This raised another issue; how far should he go to complete his mission? Blowing up a ZAFT warship would be noticed by all the wrong people. Those were the sort of people who would recognise his face and start looking into why he was not on that shuttle. If they found out why, then Kira would get noticed by said wrong people and that would be the end of any normal and long life the kid would have. Getting cut up to see what made him work when so many others didn't, would be the best he could hope for.

"See any problems with the plan?" said the Major, more to fill the silence than to flush out the plan. It was too late for that now; the plan was a-go for better or worse.

"It will work even if it should be more flexible to take account of the crew's inexperience," replied Lancaster as they entered the pilots' ready room.

The lockers were full of brightly coloured normal suits in all shapes and sizes and none ever worn. He picked a blue and white one that looked his size. Putting on the helmet, he felt a chill at the base of his spine and a familiar, but unknown sensation flowed over him. Every sense in his body was telling him to take off the helmet and normal suit, but he didn't, remembering Duos fate.

"Are you ok?" asked Kira.

"I am fine," replied Lancaster.

"You sure? You just froze up there for a second," that was the Major.

Lancaster didn't answer but moved to the door to the hangar deck.

The Strike was locked down where he had last seen it, but now he looked at it not just as a Gundam but rather as his Gundam.

The Strike's controls felt natural, natural to anyone who had piloted a Serpent. Of course the Strike didn't have to lug around multiple Gatling-cannon and their ammo or other massive amount of firepower. What worried Lancaster was that Kira could point out all the controls, and give him a brief about its handling quirks as if he had been piloting mobile suits his entire life.

His piloting ability was far in excess of most regular pilots, and, presented with the evidence in front of him, Lancaster could only find one conclusion; someone had been training Kira. The suit's layout and the Blitz Mirage Colloid, last used on Deathscythe Hell pointed to a Barton involvement. He would have to investigate this after they had got off the ship, find out what they were planning.

At least Kira had some good friends, friend like he had had at one time, now he didn't know how many were still alive. Duo was a goner no question about that but the others if they had played it smart could have got away like he did. Wufei and Quatre had been identified by dental records; there was not much left of their "bodies" for anything else. Trowa was only identified by his DNA, but everyone had tampered with those records so many times it was just not funny anymore, one of his IDs used the DNA from his old dog Fido.

Kira closed the hatch. This somehow cleared the whirlwind that was Lancaster's mind. His senses heightened, his mind focussed on one thing, "mission accepted; will eliminate all targets," he said. Somehow the controls he was gripping didn't feel so new and unfamiliar but rather the worn and abused controls of his old suit after one too many brushes with death.

He had that feeling again; it was like he was no longer Lancaster Lowe, he was a weapon, the monster, the hero. He was already dead; he had just not finished his mission yet. His life in his eyes was so cheap it was already spent. Death held no fear for him, it was a release, a release from all those whom he had killed, and from all those he would have to kill.

A/N

Yeah sorry for taking so long to update, anyway thank the Bartons for their attempt to make the perfect soldier for the ending. Now you have to wait to see how Athrun and Co get out of the battle alive which has been one of the biggest hurdles in writing this as who could stand toe to toe with Lancaster from the start of Seed? End of seed Kira and Athrun could maybe, if Zero didn't help, and same with Shin from the end of destiny, but other than that it's Dynasty Warriors Gundam on easy mode, and not in a helpful way for any storytelling. Mu in a mobile suit would also be a strong contender, but right now he has the Moebius Zero... He would be better off throwing rocks at a Gundam than piloting that thing; hell, in one scene he shoots a Ginn in the back and it survives then kills his wing man. You would think someone would have given him a bigger gun by now, but a lot of Seed mobile suit/armours are under gunned and need MORE DAKKA.

For reference all code names and background information for Wing is on Gundam wiki. The other wiki took it all down to save space. Yes, I will be using a lot of the stuff that was not in the TV show like Episode Zero Manga which is a must read for all Gundam Wing fans. I may also put in stuff from the Seed side stories, but I don't know them as well.

I will be putting up previews of next chapters on my profile page.


	3. Chapter two Gundam furball

Chapter 2 Gundam furball

"Whoever lays eyes on a Gundam shall not live to tell of it."

- Standard operating procedures for all Gundam pilots

0o0o0o0o0o0

Almost one year ago a bomb killed the leaders of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation. The attack was blamed on the coordinators who, because of birthing problems in zero gravity made up the majority of the colonists. As a show of force a fleet was sent to the L5 cluster. During this show of force, an order was received en route that the mission had changed to an attack on the colonies with nuclear weapons. This atrocity would be known as the Bloody Valentine incident, and would be far from the last committed on either side. Almost one year has passed, and the death toll from the ensuing war is almost double that of the EVE wars; both sides are at a stale mate with no end in sight.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Roger, I have control," he said, as the Aile Striker Pack was loaded on to his Gundam.

He ignored the surprise on the young girl's face; one of Kira's friends no doubt wondering where Kira was.

His training was kicking in even if now and then it missed a gear. In those times it missed a gear, he would ask why was he doing this? He would also see the faces of those he would be fighting, 15 and 16 year olds, too young to know what they were doing like he was back then. Other times he would wish that they were Mobile Dolls, then everything would be fine. He could kill an AI; they didn't have family and friends back home, they didn't breathe, they were just machines; cold, logical, inhuman, like him. But his training would always kick back in, and he would prepare himself for the battle.

"One contact from the Nazca class identified as the Aegis," cut in the controller breaking through his thoughts. The positron cannons must have fired and the engines been spun up according to the plan without him noticing, or ZAFT would not have deployed their mobile suits.

"Has the Laurasia launched anything yet?" he asked.

Kira's friend looked down at her monitor; "no," she said finally.

Either the Nazca's commander was playing it smart or the Laurasia was slow in launching its suits. The Aegis was armed with a rifle, 4 sabres, a shield and a "Scylla" 580mm energy cannon. The energy cannon could be a threat to small warships and suits, but the beam was too spread out and lacked the concentrated energy needed for penetrating a true battleship armour, like the Archangel. The abominable Nelson class would be in trouble but not this ship, this ship had laminated armour which distributed heat over its structure making most energy weapons pointless. The armour had one drawback, it had to be made in one continuous layer or the thermal energy would not conduct properly making it expensive to maintain. A small hole from a kinetic round would mean that all the armour was less effective requiring the whole thing to be replaced.

"Strike why have you not launched yet?" barked Badgiruel.

He remembered why he had been a lone wolf, too many weak people who held him back with their incompetence.

"New contacts Buster Duel and Blitz launching from the Laurasia," said the sensor operator.

"Confirm control," he said as he finished up the pre-flight checks. It didn't matter if something had gone tech as he was launching no matter what, but it gave him the reassurance that everything would work when he needed it. "Commencing mission, will eliminate enemy main force," he said, part of his mind questioning when ZAFT had become 'his' enemy.

The Aegis was obviously a distraction as the Buster was the only one from the X weapons he had been briefed on that could penetrate the armour of the ship, hence its two escorts. If he was wrong then the Aegis was coming in on the only vector the Archangels main guns could hit, so it was of no consequence. As he left the catapult he flipped the Strike 180 degrees and punched the throttle, shooting past the bridge of the Archangel.

"Captain Lowe where are you going?" Came Badgiruel.

"The Aegis is a decoy, engaging Buster, Dual and Blitz," he said.

"Strike engage Aegis; the Buster, Blitz and the Dual have longer intercept vectors," ordered Badgiruel.

"Negative, Buster is the main threat. Aegis was sent to intercept first to pull any defenders out of position; continuing mission," he responded.

He focused on the three suits just outside effective range of his weapons. The first one was the Dual, a command unit with a balanced load-out of close and medium range weapons. Comparable strength to the Strike Aile, that one could be a challenge. He didn't have any distinct advantage in terms of machine.

Next was the Buster flanked by the others. It was a heavy support unit with missiles, twin buster rifles just like his old suit except his could have destroyed the Archangel in a single shot. However he had two beam sabres for when he got in close, even Trowa had something for a fur-ball although that was probably because he never had enough ammo for the mission. The best tactic for dealing with the Buster would be to get in close.

The last was the Blitz, a stealth infiltration and recon suit with most of its weapons in an arm-mount, the only exception being a Gleipnir similar to Altron's dragon fang. The only danger this suit posed was that if it went invisible then it would be just like playing hide and seek with Deathscythe again without ZERO; put enough flying objects into the air and you would find it.

The three mobile suits in front of him split off on separate vectors wide enough to force him to either choose one or fall back to the ship. If he went after one he would give the other two a free run at the ship, but if he fell back then he would have let them close to weapon range on the ship, and he would lose the initiative. The Buster was the main threat. The others had pea shooters compared to it and would not do much more than dent the armour of the ship so could be ignored.

His mind made up he set himself up for an intercept.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Looks like I get the honour of avenging Miguel," said Dearka.

Yzak just snorted, "don't screw this up Elsman."

This felt wrong to Nicol. They could easily surround and destroy the only mobile unit in theatre, but Le Creuset had ordered them to destroy the 'legged ship', so he did not argue. Instead, he followed the intercept trajectory. He, however, kept an eye on Dearka.

"Buster engaging," came Dearka as he locked his two buster rifles together, and fired at the Strike. Rather than dodging, the Strike took the shot on its shield, much to Dearka's evident satisfaction. Satisfaction which was short-lived, as the Strike used the hit on its shield to veer off at an odd angle that negated any defensive manoeuvres. The last thing Nicol saw from Dearka's monitor was him whooping with joy before the buster took a hit to its head and the screen went blank.

"Dearka is in trouble," Nicol yelled over the coms as he reversed his momentum; Yzak was a hairs breadth behind him.

Dearka was still alive and firing back but the head of the Buster was slagged along with his communication gear. Now the Strike was dodging fire as it closed range. This was made easier by Dearka's wild firing which was more likely to hit him or Yzak but right now none of them cared.

The Strike got within arm's reach of the Buster and wrestled the Buster rifle out of Dearka's hands using its shield to bludgeon the buster several times. This was not without Dearka getting in several solid hits and finishing with him unloading his entire missile stock into the Strike's face.

"Great shot, Elsman," yelled Yzak, only for the dust to clear and show the Strike standing there without a mark on it, holding one of those knives in one hand, and in the other, the Buster's weapons.

The Strike stabbed the knife into the remains of the Buster's head, then used it as a spring board and bounced towards Yzak, leaving the Buster to power down and become immobile.

"I got you now MONSTER!" yelled Yzak as he closed range. The Strike's response was to line up a shot with its stolen Buster rifle and fire. Yzak tried the same trick the Strike had just used of bouncing the shot off the shield to let him come in at an unguarded angle. The trick however evidently took more skill than it looked, as Yzak rather than staying in control of his momentum was sent spinning. This only stopped when the Strike fired a second shot that blew off the Duel's right shoulder pad.

The Strike discarded the Buster rifle and closed in on the Duel. Nicol could only watch, having veered to aid the Buster and being therefore too far from the engagement to affect the outcome. The Strike's knife came out again and rammed into the exposed shoulder crippling that arm. Yzak shield-bashed the Strike away, only for it to draw its beam rifle and get a clear shot in at the exposed arm-pit, detaching the Duel's other arm and forcing a power shutdown.

Nicol fired all his lancer darts, more to keep the Strike off balance than to do any damage. He evaluated his options. The Strike was piloted by an expert. Yzak had demonstrated that by trying to copy its moves. At range the pilot had demonstrated high accuracy with its rifle and the Busters Buster rifle; in close it had hit exposed areas with an ungainly precision with knives that would not normally have done anything to the phase-shift armour.

The Strike did not give Nicol anymore time to think; instead it drew a beam-sabre and charged. Nicol panicked and launched his Gleipnir at the Strike, which just fired back with its Igelstellung. This was the first mistake that Nicol noticed the Strike had made as the Gleipnir was also covered by phase-shift armour and was therefore unaffected by the impacts other than a slight trajectory change, which was corrected by onboard telemetry. The rounds from the Igelstellung were actually hitting the Gleipnir with such energy that they were vaporising on impact. For an instant it looked as if the Gleipnir had been destroyed, only for it to burst through the cloud and slam into the other mobile suit's chest.

The whole point of P.S armour is to be invulnerable to kinetic attacks, however the energy from a round hitting would have to go somewhere and the strike was no exception to the law of physics. The Gleipnir caused the Strike to spin off to the side, averting the charge. The Strike however, regained control quickly and fired its Igelstellung at Nicol who brought up his shield reflexively.

"Team two where are you?" asked Athrun over the squad communication channel. It sounded as if he was in as much trouble as Nicol.

"Yzak and Dearka are down," said Nicol realising he was panting.

"Dead?" asked Athrun in a stunned voice.

"No, mobility kills; both have been powered down. Request backup," said Nicol panicking.

"On my way, hang in there Nicol," said Athrun.

The Strike decided that simply firing kinetic weapons at the Blitz was not going to work, so moved back into close range. Nicol activated his beam-sabre knowing he had to delay the Strike until Athrun arrived. The Strike however, would not give him that opportunity.

0o0o0o0oo0o0

Athrun reached the battle between Nicol and Kira just as Nicol slashed at the Strike only for Kira to duck the slash. Nicol had overextended himself, with his attack spinning him around and leaving his back open to Kira's counterattack.

"NICOL!" Athrun cried.

Nicol didn't react fast enough. Athrun could not tare his eyes away it was like a car wreck. The strike raised both arms one holding a beam-sabre in a reverse grip the other holding its shield to block any retaliation by Nicol. The sabre slowly moved up until it was almost in contact with the rear of the Blitz then it shut off... Athrun at first thought the strike had ran out of power but the armour stayed powered up.

The Strike reached around and grabbed the Blitz in a full Nelson grip. Athrun finally figured out why the beam-sabre had been deactivated, Kira didn't want to kill Nicol, he wanted to take a hostage. Kira was no longer the same person to whom he had given Burdy. That boy had been kind, considerate and would never have used a human shield.

"Pilot of the Aegis and Blitz power-down your armour and weapon systems immediately," came a voice over his radio, along with a video. The man in the video was not Kira, from what he could see the man had the coldest blue eyes and a demeanour that made hard vacuum look warm.

Athrun complied as did Nicol, there was no way either of them could get off a shot on the Strike, yet anyway. They would have to bide their time.

"Take your friends and go," said the pilot of the Strike in the most emotionless tone Athrun had ever heard.

"What?" came Nicol and Athrun simultaneously, both stunned. They were on the ropes, two men down, another taken hostage and all their weapons and armour offline in four recently stolen mobile suits, and they were being let go.

"We have over 200 civilians from a damaged life-pod. We do not have the facilities to take you prisoner," said the pilot, in that emotionless tone.

"You are not going to kill us?" asked Nicol tentatively. Hostilities were at the point where prisoners were regularly being shot on each side, not officially but everyone knew of it.

"That would be against the laws of war, and besides, one Laurasia and two mobile suits are not a threat to us," replied the pilot of the Strike.

"We can still fight you or did you forget about the Nazca class?" said Yzak smugly. He must have got his coms gear working, unfortunately.

The other pilot just inclined his head. For a moment nothing happened then the 'Legged ship' fired a positron cannon.

"We are not defeated you natural bastard!" snarled Yzak.

The other pilot just inclined his head again. Athrun immediately started scanning the vicinity for another threat.

"Coward, stand and fight!" yelled Yzak, as the Strike released Nicol.

The other pilot snorted contemptuously.

"Athrun, Nicol take that bastard down!" yelled Yzak.

"If you do that, then. I. Will. Kill. You," said the other pilot.

Athrun prided himself on doing the right thing, the honourable thing, and shooting in the back someone who could have killed them or taken them prisoner but let them go, was not the right thing to do. He was also not stupid, after all, who had heard of a dumb co-ordinator, and attacking someone who had already won didn't sound smart.

"This is Zala in the Aegis acting commander of the Le Creuset team. Gamow, we have taken too much damage and are withdrawing from combat. What is the status of the Vesalius?"

"Aegis this is Gamow actual; confirm return; vectors uploaded to your tack now. The Vesalius has taken damage to its engines, and is withdrawing from combat," came Captain Zellman, Captain of the Gamow.

"Thanks. Be advised we have two crippled suits, one with a pilot whose status is unknown."

"What did I miss?" asked Dearka.

"Those two cowards just let the Strike get away," spat Yzak.

"Correction; the pilot is unharmed," Athrun reported in, relieved that Dearka was alive.

"What?" asked Dearka.

"You and Yzak are down, and the Vesalius has been crippled," Athrun explained.

"It got Yzak?" asked Dearka.

"It was a lucky shot," Yzak snapped.

"Yeah, tell me about it; no-one could have pulled off that shot on purpose," Dearka said.

"That pilot was something else," said Nicol.

"SHUT UP!" yelled Yzak and Dearka, their egos at stake.

0o0o0o0o0

"Archangel this is Strike; mission complete; all hostile forces withdrawing," said Lancaster not letting anything show.

"Strike this is Archangel actual; nice work out there," came the skipper.

Lancaster shrugged, "enemy strength was lower than anticipated."

She coughed, "very well, return to Archangel."

"Confirm," said Lancaster trying to relax.

A text message appeared on a side screen in his cockpit that said in a nutshell, hold on the cavalry is coming. He replied 'mission complete RTB.'

Lancaster checked his power-gauge again trying to calm his nerves. It was low, but not dangerously so, he still had four minutes left, but he shut down the armour anyway. It was unsettling for someone who was used to having the longevity to fight for 12 hours straight to suddenly have to worry about conserving power. The last battle had not physically taxed him and the missile blast had done the most to drain the Strikes armour, but his training had got the better of him. He had become that monster, that weapon. The Buster was lucky he had been aiming for a torso shot but had missed, that kid could have died. That realisation had kick-started his higher brain functions back into action.

He was lucky that the electronics in these new Gundams were not worth a dam and could short out giving him a mission kill without a fatality, he would have to check the Strike to see if it suffered from the same flaw. It was really no surprise that these weapons would require modification before they were combat capable. They were prototypes like the Wing Zero was. These new Gundams, however were more combat ready than ZERO, they didn't drive their pilots insane, well other than ones who had been 'specially' trained.

It would have been so much easier if they had been Mobile Dolls. _Oh great, now I am wishing for those monstrosities to come back,_ he thought bitterly.

0o0o0o0o0

"YOU DID WHAT?" To say Natarle was angry was like saying that a Gundam was good or that Milliardo was a threat to the earth, peace and apple pie. In other words it was an understatement.

"I let them go," said Captain Lowe as emotionlessly as always.

"And why did you fail to capture or kill our enemy?" she said, wondering why the hell she had argued for Captain Lowe to take over the Strike.

"Do we have the facility to take prisoners?" Captain Lowe asked.

"We have a brig," she stated flatly.

"But no guards," Captain Lowe pointed out.

"Then why not kill them?" she asked pointedly.

"Ensign Badgiruel may I remind you that firing on enemy combatants that have surrendered is a war crime, and I am neither a soldier of the Alliance nor a murderer."

Natarle was speechless, how dare this man suggest that she was implying murder, this was war and they were ordered to kill their enemy; that was their duty. Bloody pacifist tree huggers.

"So you are not an Alliance soldier?" asked Mu as he entered.

"Correct, a cyborg cannot enter a combat situation as if say, my arm failed in combat I would become a liability to my comrades," said Captain Lowe.

"Wait what?"

"I cannot be returned to active duty due to my injuries; however citizens of the Sanc Kingdom are allowed to use reasonable force if they find themselves within a battle to protect themselves and others."

"So what is classed as reasonable force?" asked Major La Flagger.

Captain Lowe just shrugged.

"What happens if you use excessive force?" asked Natarle

"I get charged with assault on a member of ZAFT and deported to the PLANTs."

Both Alliance officers winced. That was basically a death sentence. If it had been the other way around the Alliance would hang him; however in low gravity, hanging someone didn't work so ZAFT would just kick them out of an airlock.

"It won't happen," said Lancaster, "I didn't kill any ZAFT soldiers and my actions helped protect civilians."

"Yet anyway," corrected Major La Flagger.

"We will be safe in MO2," said Captain Lowe.

"MO2?" asked Natarle confused, they were going to Artemis and that was the extent of their plans.

"That's what Artemis was called when I was in OZ," said Captain Lowe, reaching the door.

0o0o0o0o0

That was close, his knowledge of Sanc Kingdom law was the same as the name of his old Gundam, which also apparently summed up the two officers' knowledge as well; good. Now all he needed to do was get to MO2 and everything would be fine. The Alliance would let him and Kira go back home and he could start looking into the Bartons and what they had been up to since Operation M.

After finding out what those Bartons were up to, he could look into what just happened with his loss of control. That had not happened since early in operation M, where a young girl had knocked off his sense of who he was so badly, by what amounted to stalking him around the world and into space. She just didn't want to see someone she saw as a truly good person getting himself killed or killing himself and was determined to tell him so. That had slowly, without knowing it, broken the special training's effect on him; he owed her a lot more than he had told her, but somehow he knew that she knew that.

Lancaster felt someone grab his arm; turning around he saw that it was the Major.

"Things may not go well at Artemis," said the Major looking serious.

"How so?" asked Lancaster, his mind racing. The Eurasians were less hostile to co-ordinators than most of the Alliance, not hard, but still notable.

"This ship does not have the correct IFF."

"So they won't let us in?" asked Lancaster, thinking of how the commanders he had known during the Preventers would react to something that looked like the Trojan horse; probably the same way they did during the EVE war, let it in.

"They may not, but more likely they know who we are and will play dumb so they can poke around."

Lancaster froze; they would poke around and find out that someone had reprogrammed the Strike from a buggy scrap of metal into something more than a match for anything ZAFT had. No commander with any ambition would miss this opportunity to turn the war in the Alliance's favour. They would of course 'ask' him to help their war effort, even if 'yes' was the only answer he could give. If Kira could say no they would write down what they found and someone would find out, someone who might recognise the similarities between Kira and himself, and that would be that.

"Lock down the Strike's operating system. After what you did out there I think we can trust you with that," said the Major.

Lancaster nodded: the Major didn't trust him, and to be brutally honest Lancaster didn't trust the man after seeing him put pressure on Kira to fight for the Alliance.

As Lancaster turned to go back to the hangar, the Major called out, "Oh and Captain," Lancaster froze, "nice bluff."

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Sai you jerk," Flay said, her words muffled by Sai's uniform.

At least I am not the only one getting chewed out, thought Kira, looking back to his friends.

"Come on Kira, why didn't you say anything?" asked Miriallia.

"Er I didn't get a chance," replied Kira. It sounded better in his head.

"So you just came back here?" asked Miriallia hotly.

"No, I helped out in the hangar," said Kira, not wanting to say that he had helped out in the hangar because he was feeling guilty about everyone else getting dragged into this because of him.

"Still, did you see that? I know Kira's good in a Mobile Suit, but that guy just took down two of those stolen mobile suits and that was before that red one got hit by the linear cannon," said Tolle.

Kira's stomach felt like it was tying a double bow; that 'red one' was Athrun. When the monitor in the hangar had shown that, Kira had been the only one not cheering. What had made Athrun who had hated war join ZAFT? Kira could not imagine what would have turned Athrun to such a path. Athrun had wanted to become a doctor like his mother and had only got into fights when other kids had picked on Kira, making fun of him because his parents were naturals.

"And then he took that black one prisoner and told the red one to 'take your friends and get lost.' Come on, that's the sort of thing a bad Hollywood action hero does," continued Tolle in his blow by blow account of the battle.

The hangar crew were stunned when they had seen all four machines powered down and then told to get lost. There had even been some cries of outrage, but Kira had been glad, Athrun was safe and so were the rest of his friends. Well, Sai was not, but Flay would not kill him.

"I said take your friends and go," came Mr Lowe, causing all of them to jump, "Kira I need to talk to you."

Kira gulped; the look in the man's eyes was giving him warnings as if they were red emergency decompression lights flashing.

Mr. Lowe led him down the corridor out of sight of the other civilians.

"Put this on," said Mr. Lowe, as he threw an orange mechanic's uniform at Kira.

"But why?" Kira asked, blinking at the uniform.

"Things may not go down smoothly at MO2, it would be better if you and your friends were not associated with the Strike," said Mr. Lowe.

Kira's stomach tied itself into a balloon animal. If he had not piloted the strike none of this would have happened and he and his friends were possibly going to be right in the middle of it all now.

"After the shuttle arrives take this to the Captain, say it's my report about the Strike's performance so far and maintenance requirements. If anyone asks for your opinion say you were working on the Zero. The Chief and the Major will back you up," said Mr Lowe, typing on a data slate. "The records have been edited to show you and your friends came in on the escape pod, and I was the pilot of the Strike."

Kira's mind was running though all the 'bad things' that could happen and they all came down to him being a co-ordinator on an Alliance ship. Why the hell did his parents make him a co-ordinator?

"If anything comes up let me do the talking," Mr. Lowe said as he passed the data slate.

"But..." said Kira weakly

"They will be here soon; I would suggest you get moving," Said Mr. Lowe.

Kira floated off feeling physically ill; yet again Mr. Lowe had stepped in to keep him out of serious trouble. He didn't have to, Kira would rather get into trouble than let someone else take the fall for his problems.

0o0o0o0o0o0

A/N

I need feedback on the fight scenes as they are hard to do and when I am using someone who would be a Gary Stu if he was not a crossover character, things can get awkward.

I feel like I need to rant about Seed warships. When I mentioned the Nelson class was abominable, I was basing it on the fact that in the show these things were getting nailed by fucking frigates (Laurasia) and destroyers (Nazca), not just their escorts, but the fucking tin-cans themselves. The only time this should happen is if it's part of Taffy 3; then, and only then, can destroyers and destroyer escorts fight like battleships.

However as a Wing continuation it makes sense, as political constraints on armed forces have at times created sub-standard equipment. In the peace time ESUN where millions were made redundant by a large scale arms reduction, making ships that were crap for fighting, made sense. After all there was never going to be a war again... Where did I hear that one before? And why has that man with the funny moustache got his arm up in the air?

Thanks for all your reviews, the response from this story is gratifying and I hope not to disappoint. People seem to like how it's not a black hole crossover as I like to call them, such as crossing barriers, which is a good read even if you don't like yaoi. I started out with the idea of Duo and Heero ending up on the Minerva as contract technicians who were called in to fix a last minute bug, but got caught up in GSD. However, when I started to pick at the story one question always came up, where the hell had the Gundams been during Seed? At one point I had it that Heero had been on Junius Seven when it got hit and was out for the war. But as good an idea as that was, there are 4 other Gundams and nuking a colony would piss them off and things would not happen like canon, bits I would have to show not tell. The butterflies were going so far back I said fuck it lets put them in at the beginning and see what happens, and so here we are.

I think I replied to all reviews, if not, my apologies, but just in case here's my answers.

Pairings will be cannon unless I need to do a major ass-pull to get them to work. Unfortunately with some characters from wing I can't keep cannon, (or fanon as wing was never supposed to have pairings), on account of them being KIA or MIA. I'm sorry if things are not the way you want. I would also like to point out it has been 16 years since any Gundam pilot saw another, or any old friends so things may have moved on. If you want to have x and y together you are free to use my idea and roll with it in your own story, just send me a link I would like to see it (please no youi). Raizen Lord of Twilight had a good idea for Heero X Cagalli that would not have fitted in with the story as... well that's a secret, but it sounded good.

Yes Lancaster rescued Kira but you will not find out the whole story until Kira does. So if one chapter equals one episode of Seed, well let's just say you will need to wait a long time.

Yes Duo is alive, see the prologue.

I plan on putting a rather nice piece I did for a creative writing group, for the preview on my profile page so please read. This is the same group that has by the time of this update, got some of my short stories published!


	4. Chapter three MO2

Edit 11/01/2011 thanks to Twillightfairy for spotting an error, you may get a cameo later on. I have also fixed some other errors I spotted, I feel stupid now.

Chapter 3 MO2

"Just see for yourself how powerless you really are!" Mariemeia's reply to Heero's question about the security of her bunker.

"You heading for the bridge?" asked an officer with no rank badge, he didn't salute.

"Yes sir," replied one of the two ratings escorting the Commander to the bridge. The rating also neglected to salute; he would have to have a word with this lieutenant Ramius, standards were slipping.

"Tell the Skipper I am going to get some sack time. I am in corridor B, bed 4 if she needs me or the Strike," said the officer heading towards the crew quarters, failing to salute or acknowledge his presence.

"Will do sir," said the rating, then as an afterthought, "great job out there sir, you showed those co-ordinator bastards what us naturals can do."

"Who is that man?" asked the rear admiral trying to sound curious and not as though someone had just failed to give him the respect to which his rank entitled him.

"Sir, that's Captain Lowe our mobile suit pilot, some sort of old OZ army ace mixed in with some civilians we picked up," said the rating eagerly.

"Thank you Seaman," said the Commander, as he typed something on his data pad. Small bits of information like that could prove useful to the Commandant, he thought as they got into the lift.

"Hold the door," came a yell from down the corridor. Automatically one of the ratings pushed the button to hold the lift in place long enough for a young brown haired kid in an orange uniform to catch up.

The boy started when he saw the Commander and tried to salute with the wrong hand, much to the amusement of the two ratings.

"Don't mind Kira Sir, we were short on manpower and asked for volunteers from the civilians," said the rating as an explanation.

"Don't worry about it, so what have they got you doing son?" asked the Commander trying to put the young man at ease. He had been an Ensign at one time and knew how scary his rank made him. Too bad for this kid, he was going to shit a brick when the Marines arrived, best keep him calm so he didn't do anything stupid.

"The hanger deck, I help out with the Zero" the kid said, but he was not just nervous, there was something more. It was as if he was scared of something. Interesting... He would also have to report this.

He thought through his standard lines of encouragement and found an appropriate one. "I am sure you did the best you could under these difficult circumstances, Mr..."

"Yamato, Kira Yamato Sir," said the boy looking relieved and trying a salute again with a noticeable improvement.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Athrun watched as the Vesalius limped out of sensor range. There was no way to repair the damage other than time in a ship yard back at the PLANTs, same could be said for Yzak and Dearka's machines. You could build and repair a lot of parts for mobile suits with the tools available in a warship, but there was a limit to what you could do, and rebuilding a mobile suit that none of the technicians had been trained on was more than they could manage.

Athrun looked across the hanger to the only other machine, the Blitz. Nicol was running through simulations of the last battle, trying to beat that pilot of the strike. Athrun had not faced the strike's new pilot but he was good. First he had seen the obvious attempt to draw out the Archangel's strike craft, then had separated and engaged Yzak's wing in single combat negating their numerical superiority. Then there was the way he had fought; it was as if he was not even trying to kill them, as if they were not worth the effort ,or at least that's how Yzak and Dearka saw it, and were out for vengeance. Athrun however didn't care, as the pilot was not Kira, his friend. The others would not understand how relieved he was about fighting someone who made a mockery of a squadron without trying, as long as it was not little cry baby Kira as some of the kids used to call him.

"Hey Lieutenant we are going to need in there now to check the wiring," said a technician who was working on fixing the flaws that had crippled the Duel and the Buster.

"Sure" replied Athrun prising himself out of the cockpit. His watch said 0110 hours ship time which meant he had enough time for a shower and to grab something from the mess before his briefing with the Skipper.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Well the Alliance soldiers were smarter than their OZ counterparts; Lancaster had to give them that, as he looked down the barrels of ten rifles.

All he could do was raise his hand.

"Both arms!" barked one of the soldiers in the manner of Sergeants everywhere.

"It's under my bunk," he replied, trying to sound disarming but he knew better than to expect it to work; emotionless drone was one of the nicer things his co-workers called him behind his back.

"Don't fuck around with me, get your hands where I can see them!"

"It's an artificial limb,"

"A fucking cyborg! They will be letting damn Dolls into ZAFT next, fucking White Fang," said the Sergeant using one of the worst things his co-workers called him.

"Can I put it back on?" Lancaster asked. He could not sleep with it on and he had gone through several alarm clocks before he had given up and just taken it off when he slept.

"Like hell you miserable dirt bag, move it out!"

Lancaster sighed, why did these soldiers have to be competent the one time he was not there to kill them? At lest he was decent, this Sergeant sounded like he would drag him out in his underwear.

The soldiers separated him from the others and lead him to an airlock used to board the ship. He was joined minutes later by Murrue, Ensign Badgiruel, the Major and another man with L.T. commander stripes.

"Where's your arm," asked Murrue, she didn't look happy.

"Under my bunk, Marines didn't let me get it," he said.

"Well these Marines were probably told to disarm everyone," said Mu. This got a collective groan from everyone within earshot.

The journey to the Commandant's office was uneventful if not longer than it should have been; their escorts took them by the scenic route and doubled back several times. It didn't matter, as he knew the layout of this base even if it had been upgraded since last he was there for that memorial service with his Imoto.

When they arrived the admiral stood up from his desk and greeted them in an overly friendly manner, in turn they saluted, Lancaster noted that his salute was different to the others' but decided it would keep up his appearance of a retired soldier who was out of practice.

"I was unaware that you were injured in your last engagement, I will have my medical staff take a look at what is left of your arm," he said actually sounding concerned.

"That won't be necessary, I lost my arm when I was in the Preventers," replied Lancaster smartly not bothering to bring up the Sergeant.

"An old peace keeper veteran? I served myself in the Preventers. First Officer on the Warspite, I tried to do the merchant fleet but it lacked that something that I fell in love with back in Romefeller. I am sure you have some stories to tell especially about your arm."

"I am sorry sir but I was in the Special Forces so I can't talk about what I did," said Lancaster, trying to sound genuine. He also left out the jokes like 'if I did then I would have to kill you.' The 'Mobile Doll' were obviously lacking in the humour department.

"You will find I have sufficient clearance," said the Commandant smugly.

"Sir, with all due respect, you don't have high enough clearance or you would already know," said Lancaster, not liking his persistence. Questions answered could tell a trained observer what was a lie and what was a half lie. That was basic interrogation and was better than pain at getting answers.

This seemed to annoy the admiral, but his face bore the expression of a brother in arms who regretted having to make them jump through hoops. It was just procedure, however his eyes gave him away. Good, keep your focus on us and not Kira.

He then moved on to buttering up the Major with how he had served on the Grimaldi Front, and how, despite the defeat at the Endymion Crater the Major's actions gave a great morale boost to those fighting under the Eurasian flag. Personally, Lancaster didn't see how anything on that front could be considered a victory, ZAFT had been hit hard by the suicide of Endymion, and the Alliance had been hit hard by ZAFT to the point where killing your own men was deemed an acceptable way of winning a battle. From the expression on the Major's face, he didn't see it as a victory either.

"However who would of thought you would inexplicably appear onboard that vessel," said the Commandant in a voice so greasy it could have come from Duo's microwave on a Saturday night.

"I am on a special mission, Sir. Unfortunately I am not at liberty to disclose any detail at this time," said the Major in a voice that sounded too respectful to be anything but a pre-rehearsed line.

"I understand, but it will be difficult to resupply you right away," said the Commandant in a tone that suggested that if they told him everything he wanted to know, it would be quicker.

"It's absolutely vital that we head to lunar HQ as soon as humanly possible. As you know, we are being pursued by ZAFT," said Murrue. Lancaster wondered if she had missed the subtle hints the Commandant had been making, then he remembered all the "Yes Sirs" he had heard that meant nothing of the sort.

"By ZAFT?" said the Commandant pushing a button on his desk changing the landscape displayed on the monitors behind him to a view centred on the Laurasia-class.

"It's the Laurasia-class?"

"As you can see, the ship has been roaming around outside the umbrella; they have been there for a short while now," said the Commandant turning around to look at the ship.

"One or two vessels are of little concern to us here, even if you were resupplied you would still be unable to depart."

"They won't abandon their pursuit of the Archangel. We cannot afford to stay here for much longer and risk damage to Artemis"

The Commandant laughed, "Did I hear you right? Damage to our base? They are powerless to do anything to us and will eventually leave; it happens all the time."

"With all due respect commandant–," began the Major, but he was cut off by the Commandant raising his hand.

"At any rate I recommend you get some R and R, you appear to be exhausted. I will have your quarters prepared," said the commandant pressing a button

"Commandant couldn't we-" the Major was cut off again by a young officer entering the room.

"We will have a chance to contact lunar HQ once they leave, we will make arrangements after that."

"You are that certain, that Artemis is safe?" asked the Major.

"As safe as an infant in its mother's arms," replied the Commandant. This brought up a memory from before meteor of what had happened to a little girl and her dog. That base had thought that they were safe from attack on such a peaceful colony with the latest in electronic security. He had turned that overconfidence in their invulnerability into their demise. But from where Lancaster stood right now he could not see how ZAFT would do it, he just knew they would.

Lancaster used the time it took them to walk to their quarters to remember the locations of armouries, barracks, hangars, escape pods and generally anything that would go bang in a big way, just in case he needed to fight his way out and grab Kira on the way.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Damn the Captain of the Archangel! She was not playing ball; if she had, then he could have got the Eurasian Federation valuable data on a new warship, and more importantly, a mobile suit, but she had to be difficult, and now he would have to steal the data. Still he had one option left to him, that pilot Captain Lowe, he was defiant, but Commodore Gerard Garcia knew these OZ types, they would do anything for that mad man Treize. He had almost dishonourably discharged her from the fleet but had held back.

Commodore Garcia smiled, 'yes, she would do,' he thought as he glanced at the photo attached to her profile. Her pale blue eyes bore back at him as defiantly as Captain Lowe's, but that didn't matter. She was not her father and all the better for it; the man was insane. She was a perfect opportunity to advance his career and of course to win the war, they were one and the same after all.

She was admitted into his office, her long red hair, (well beyond regulation), flowing out behind her. On a normal woman this would be a tripping hazard, but she didn't tower over people through her presence. Her projection of power was just an illusion by the little girl inside that had held the world in the palm of her hand for less than a day. Even then it had been an illusion; she was only a puppet pulling the strings of the world not seeing her own. Times had changed and now she served another, not as a puppet but as a pawn. His pawn.

Her height was offset by her constant stoop; she however meant no disrespect by her posture, for her standing was a miracle in of itself. Her vertebrae had enough metal holding them together to build a battleship, along with a small computer to replace the nerves damaged when she was a child. An injury that should have kept her from the fleet; her father's name was the only thing letting her serve. It was time to use that name to move the final pawn into position for checkmate, and his inevitable promotion out of this backwater.

"Ah, First Lieutenant Khushrenada, I have a matter you are uniquely qualified to handle," he said, bringing up a photo of Captain Lowe.

"Sir?" she said inclining her head. However her eyes gave away recognition of the pilot of the Strike, so she did in fact know all the men who had been involved in her rebellion, and this man really was one of them.

"This man claims to be a former soldier of yours, however he came in on that ship we suspect of being a Trojan horse. I want you to find out who he really is and any information he has on that mobile suit," he said keeping to the story he was feeding his men. She might be powerless and weak but she was at times too sharp for her own good.

"Yes sir," replied the Lieutenant smartly, not an ounce of disrespect in her voice. Hopefully that was a sign she would not cross him like that Sanc Kingdom business last month. She was supposed to have stopped that ship as part of the Alliance's plan to put pressure on the Sanc kingdom to side with them in this war.

He had given her too few men for the job, and then set an unrealistic time limit with the words, 'if you can't search the suspected ZAFT craft properly, bring it inside the base, we will run a thorough sweep'.

She had, within half the time allocated to her, searched the whole craft thoroughly and then had dinner with that damn pacifist Queen who had so short-changed the fleet that they didn't have enough ammunition or fuel at the start of the war.

She had defied him and prevented the Alliance from gaining a foothold in L5 and made him look like a fool to the Admiralty.

"He is in the guest room, along with the senior officers we could find," he said, turning back to his computer. There was another person he needed to see. Someone had tried to hide him in plain sight, but the boy's nerves gave him away. Now he was going to find out why he was being hidden.

The answer appeared on the front page.

Name: Kira Yamato

Gender: Male

Age: 16 years old

Nationality: Orb Heliopolis

Genetics: Coordinator

Only the Atlantic Federation would be so concerned about having a coordinator in their midst, that they would try to hide one in plain sight. It was as if they feared that their superiors would shoot them for daring to not kill a coordinator on sight.

Oh, this was just too good an opportunity to get one over on those morons in the Atlantic military. He would have to meet this boy himself, maybe convince him to join the Eurasian Forces; most of them made fine officer material in the fleet.

Reading on, he found something even better to do with the boy. He was an engineering student at Heliopolis College, one of the best known colleges in the Colonies, beating most the ones on the PLANTs. How insulting would it be if this boy, a coordinator from a neutral colony, could unlock the Atlantic Federation's mobile suit for him.

Stealing the Atlantic Federation's new mobile suit would give them the upper hand in the Alliance, one he was sure he could use to end this war decisively. Doing so by using resources the Atlantic Federation was too blinded by genocidal ways to use was just priceless.

That promotion to Fleet Admiral was as good as on his uniform.

0o0o0o0o0o0

"This base has had no strategic importance, that is why Zaft has not attacked it," said Captain Zellman.

"That, and it's a legacy from the EVE wars. The Alliance is only keeping it operational to host Christmas parties," said Athrun bitterly, remembering the last time he and Lacus had been forced to go to that awful place with all those arrogant people.

"Yes, the political ramifications of attacking Artemis with a large force would be unpleasant," agreed Captain Zellman.

"But we don't need a large force; the Blitz, my unit, has phase-shift armour like the others but it also has a stealth system," said Nicol looking thoughtful.

"But the technicians have not started on your mobile suit yet," Athrun said, concerned. Aegis was being rewired to prevent a complete electrical failure, like the Duel and Buster. The Blitz was next for an upgrade; it would have been upgraded at the same time as the Aegis, but Nicol wanted to run through all the simulations he could on the Strike.

"I can do it; they will be caught completely off-guard. The Strike won't have time to launch," said Nicol, with what almost sounded like pleading in his voice.

"Very well what do you propose," said Captain Zellman. Since Le Creuset had gone back with the Vesalius, Captain Zellman was now the most senior officer, and therefore it was his call. Athrun vaguely wondered why, as Nicol worked through his plan, most commanders were in mobile suits rather than part of the ship's company.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Conversation had dried up hours ago with everyone scared, not able to do anything about it, and wrapped up in their own thoughts.

"How long are they going to keep this up?" asked Arnold, finally breaking the silence as he sat down with his tray of food, voicing everyone's unspoken question.

Kira stiffened as he spotted more guards entering the mess hall, lead by a man in a uniform that to Kira's untrained eye looked to be that of a high-ranking officer, judging by the number of decorations on his chest.

"Where's the Captain?" demanded Arnold as he stood up to face the newcomer.

"You do not need to worry about that right now. Ah, Mr Kira Yamato," said the man as he locked eyes with Kira, "it seems we have use for someone of your talents."

"Hold on," demanded Arnold as moved to block the man's path, but he froze as the soldiers that had entered with the high-ranked officer raised their weapons at him, sending the civilians into a panic to get out of the firing-line. Arnold slowly returned to his seat.

The officer raised his hand and the soldiers lowered their weapons before he continued, "I was merely offering Mr Yamato an opportunity to work for people who do not have any animosity towards his kind, unlike the Atlantic Federation."

Kira felt his body become cold; they had found him out, and the message was clear; 'cooperate or your friends die'. This was all happening because he was the only coordinator on the Archangel. Never in all Kira's life had he wanted to be a natural more than now, not when Flay had shown contempt for all coordinators, and not even when he had been made to pilot the Strike.

Arnold growled dangerously. "It's ok," Kira said, resigned to his fate. Miriallia looked like she was going to say something, but a wave of a soldier's gun silenced her.

Kira followed the high ranking officer, who had introduced himself as Commandant Gerard Garcia down to the hangar. On the way the Commandant tried to make small-talk, but Kira was too scared to answer in more than two words, and kept his head down trying not to say anything that would provoke the man.

In the hangar, Kira saw the Strike had half a dozen technicians crawling over it.

"The pilot of the Strike has found an ingenious way of locking down the OS that has baffled my experts, but no matter, after all none of them are coordinators, like you," said the Commandant gesturing in a way that looked dramatic, but Kira was too numb to appreciate.

Kira's silence seemed to please the Commandant, Kira didn't know why, but the man continued, "It's a shame so many young coordinators like yourself are discouraged from joining up by those in the Atlantic Federation."

Kira was perplexed. Did the man think he had been mistreated by Murrue and the Archangel's Crew? Sure there was a strain between him and some of the crew, but most of them just saw him as another kid who had saved them during the battle for Heliopolis. But his hesitation seemed to anger the Commandant, so he nodded his head.

"Well then, I could help you find a promising career within the Navy, but first," he gestured to the Strike. Kira took the hint, and with a glance at the guards, he propelled himself towards the Mobile suit. The two guards followed him up to the cockpit and floated outside, watching Kira as he settled into the seat.

Kira looked at the Strike's console; if he didn't do anything, the two guards outside would notice and his friends might be hurt. He didn't trust himself to fool the technicians that he was working by random key-strokes. Kira didn't see any other alternative than to work on the problem and hope they would leave him and his friends alone if he gave them what they wanted.

The console itself looked as if it had a simple password with a hard limit of 16 characters. Surely they could have bypassed something so simple, or even hard-cracked it by number-crunching. This was the sort of thing that came on computers as a token defence against hackers. Keeping this in mind, he typed a random series of letters and numbers until he reached 16. The password had been set not to display characters.

"Incorrect password. Less than minimum number of characters. Are you human? Type the words displayed in the box below."

What the..! He had entered 16 characters. Oh, this had happened to him before, with one of the professor's old laptops he had found in a cupboard when the overhead had packed in before an important university finance meeting. The laptop had to be older than him, and had of course been corrupted, so a figure had been changed in the BIOS that stopped the laptop recognising more than one or two characters in the password. He had never before thought of corrupting part of the BIOS to stop anyone getting into his computer. He reset the computer and mashed the F5 button until the BIOS came up. Flicking through the settings, he found the one he wanted hidden deep in some menu that must have made sense to the guy who programmed it, but mystified Kira.

As the computer started back up, Kira wondered why they simply didn't pull the hard drive and use another computer to read the data, as his eyes drifted down to the tower, only for him to jump out of his seat. He was no expert, but he knew from video games that C4 was high explosive, and the stuff was crammed into every nook and cranny in the computer's tower, along with red blinking lights.

"Relax, the explosives are only set to blow if you tamper with the case. The Commandant didn't want to risk losing the data on the computer, so the bomb disposal team didn't do more than look at it," said a technician, not filling Kira with confidence.

Kira didn't return to his seat until a guard pointed his gun at him, and made motions for him to sit. He was once again presented with the password screen. Now he needed to figure out what the password was. Kira looked around the cockpit for inspiration, and saw one of the Packs of C4 had a 16 digit code on it. Well, he may as well start with that, he thought, before a muffled sound and vibration drew his attention away from the console.

The two guards had floated away from the hatch, and there was a lot of yelling from outside. The technician that had reassured him was looking down at the Commandant.

"We are under attack."

"How? This is Artemis, no-one can attack this base." That was the commandant; he sounded furious.

If they were under attack, then his friends were in danger, and Mr Lowe was not here, that meant Kira was the only pilot who could manage the Strike. He kicked the technician in the shoulder, and closed the hatch, as he typed in the 16-digit code on the explosive. It worked.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Lancaster looked round as he heard the door open behind him, and froze.

"Imoto?" he whispered.

The young woman standing in the doorway marched towards him, her eyes ablaze. Lancaster could not help but feel pride for his imoto, 16 years ago she had been confined to a wheelchair, now she was performing difficult walking motions in low gravity.

Mariemaia stopped right in front of him and raised her right hand. In a flash Lancaster brought up his own to block, as he reset his balance to take the blow's momentum and turn it into an arm hold that would break her arm. Only problem was, his left arm was under his bunk, back on the Archangel.

Mariemaias slap sent him spinning in a lazy arc that would eventually meet the ground, but she was not done with him yet. Grabbing him by the back of his uniform and dragging him back to his feet, she started snarling something, but Lancaster was not in a frame of mind to understand it. All he could think was that somewhere in his brain he had perceived his little sister as a threat and had retaliated against her. It was almost like ZERO, there was a threat, acquire target, eliminate, and it was all done without his control as if he was a passenger just along for the ride.

Yes, she had attacked him, but once during a temper tantrum of hers, he had taken a Leo to the face, a plushy he had made for her, but it had a large button for an eye and it hurt.

How in the colonies was he going to make this up to his Imoto? He thought, drawing her into a one-handed embrace.

This stopped her tirade instantly as she hugged him back. "Hello Ani, I have missed you," said Mariemaia giving him an extra squeeze.

"Ani?" asked the Major looking questioning at Lancaster, he must have thought it was a name.

"It's Japanese for big brother," said Murrue. She still looked stunned from Mariemaia's entrance.

"What else would I call the boy who was responsible for my parents' meeting. I believe you have a good story about that, don't you?" replied Mariemaia, her face completely transformed from the rictus of fury it was moments before, into the picture of a model officer and lady.

"Lady Kushranada, I am sorry, I was unaware that you were in the fleet," said the XO formally.

"Yes, I gained my wings 6 months ago, the PR thought I would be a big boost to morale, but my mother stopped them from using my photo on the recruitment posters," she replied just as formally.

"How is Lady Une if I may ask?"

Lancaster saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes but she mastered it perfectly before replying, "She is well, but her command is keeping her busy."

"What unit is the General with?" asked Lancaster, dreading the answer, his sore cheek forgotten.

"The 2nd Armoured," she said, controlling all emotion except in her eyes, which said she was scared.

Lancaster knew what she was feeling, the Second Armoured had been hit hard in north Africa near El Alamein and had been shattered. The woman who had so callously sent men to their deaths against him, and would have ordered attacks on the colonies if they had not surrendered, had gone. What was left was someone who had taken in a child who may or may not have been her lover's illegitimate child and raised her. Times like this he questioned why he had stopped being that monster.

"My apologies Lieutenant Khushrenada, this is Lieutenant Ramius, she is the Captain of the Archangel," said Badgiruel as a way of introduction.

"A pleasure Lieutenant," said his Imoto saluting, which was returned by Murrue.

"I doubt you dropped by for a social call, did the Commandant send you?" asked the Major.

His imoto smiled, "he wanted me to talk to the pilot of that ZAFT mobile suit we 'captured' along with the Archangel."

"You don't really believe that we are with ZAFT do you?" asked the Major.

"Well I would not have believed that you were all ZAFT but..." she said breaking off and looking at Lancaster.

"I am not with ZAFT, and even if I was you know I would not need to use such a ploy to get past the umbrella."

"Get passed the umbrella," she laughed, "the umbrella of Artemis is impervious to any attack. Not even you could break your way through. It's funny how a pacifist government would go to such measures to make a base in case of revolution."

"Remember the last time you made that boast?"

"Fine, how would you get passed the barrier?" she asked glowering at him, no doubt she didn't want to be reminded of the night she became crippled.

Lancaster thought, the light wave barrier was a new invention that had been classified top secret, and typical of the Preventer pre war doctrine focussed on defence rather than mobile forces. Problem was he didn't know what its capabilities were. ZAFT might, but a trend that started about 7 years ago due to 'terrorist activities', was for individual Preventer commands not to share more than they had to with other commands, especially with ZAFT command.

"I am 16 years out of date, care to fill me in."

"The light-wave barrier forms a complete barrier against any solid object similar to the planet defence on the Virgo but that's where the similarities end. The light-wave barrier has ground-based emitters rather than the orbital ones used on the plant defence system. They don't have to recharge, and with a sufficient power source, will remain active indefinitely," his Imoto explained.

"But you don't have a large power source; MO2 has a nuclear reactor from when it was a mining colony with solar sails as backup power. When they introduced N-Jammers as ECM they would have replaced the nuclear reactor," Lancaster pointed out.

"No, the reactor is still there and we use it when there is no N-Jammer around, but we use a battery system to store the power for when the ZAFT patrol arrives, but they have never stayed long enough to find out how long the battery can last. It also disrupts our communications with lunar command," said his Imoto.

"So the umbrella is not always open?" asked the Major.

"It opens if we see an enemy but most of the time it's closed. We are a port after all, and we do need to let ships in and out," replied his Imoto.

"So it's only open when you see an enemy?" said XO as if to herself.

Something sent alerts through Lancaster's head. If he was attacking this base he would drift in from sunwards to cover his heat trail, and what little radar signature he had. Only way he would be stealthier was if he was using Mirage Colloid...

Lancaster evidently came to the same conclusion at the same time as the Major, judging by the vocabulary he was using.

"The Blitz," said Murrue.

"One of the Gundams is equipped with Mirage Colloid," said Lancaster by way of explanation. "Sound General Quarters if you don't want to be on the wrong end of a Gundam attack again." But his Imoto was already moving to a comms panel set into the wall.

"All hands Action Stations! Action Stations! Enemy stealth unit confirmed. Open Umbrella! This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill!" echoed his imoto's voice throughout the asteroid.

"Belay that; all hands stand down; Marines to the guest quarters arrest the spies," ordered a man Lancaster had never heard before.

Snatching the receiver from his imoto's hand Lancaster barked, "command override Whisky Zero One Black Alpha, confirm override."

"Who is this?" demanded the man on the other end.

"Confirm override." Lancaster could hear heavily armed men moving outside in the corridor.

"I demand to know who I am talking to," came the voice again. He obviously did not take orders as well as he gave them.

The Marines outside were stacking up on the door now. Lancaster didn't have any more time to waste on hoping his command overrides would still be accepted. Dropping the receiver, he put his fist through the wall 10 cm down and 35 cm to the right of the panel, activating the hidden panic button located there.

A blast proof door made out of Gundanium alloy, probably what they salvaged from Zero, was propelled downwards on electro-magnetic rails until it hit the polished wooden floor, and dug into the bed rock like a hot knife through butter. The sound like a firecracker going off could be heard from the other side of the door as the Marines tried to make entry; they would need a battleship to breach that or a nuke. _Thanks Zero, sorry you have still not seen your final battle but neither have I old friend_, thought Lancaster as he ran his hand over the smooth alloy.

"Come on," shouted his imoto from the entrance to the secret escape passage.

The XO looked like she was going to argue, but the sound of distant explosions ended any protests before they could form.

"All hands Action Stations! Action Stations! Pilots to your craft! Enemy mobile suit detected within our perimeter," announced the intercom before another voice started ordering damage-control teams to the affected areas.

Lancaster moved through the opening followed by the other Alliance officers, moving down passages so narrow they had to shimmy sideways at times. Somewhere between hatch B-2 and junction Blue-8, he acquired a gun; he embarrassingly shoved the pistol into a pocket. He could not remember the last time he had held one but it felt to natural for his liking.

His imoto reached a service hatch and opened it letting in a flood of noise that could only exist in the organised chaos of a battle. Across the sea of men and woman Lancaster saw an airlock marked "Maintenance Bay B-10". If memory served him right, that was an old ore hauler service bay that had been used to repair everything from the Tallgeese to Leo-Motherships. From a glance, those were its hay days, as it looked like a scrap yard for Moebius and anything too badly shot-up to be flown again, with one exception. In a corner sat a Moebius with an OZ decal on an over-sized radome.

"So what now?" asked the XO

"You four clamp up," replied his imoto, as she opened a locker and passed out one-size-fits-no-one normal suits which were used in emergencies where hard-vacuum was the alternative.

"Clamp up?" asked Murrue eyeing the bane of all space-faring people dubiously. She can't have had much experience of some of the short cuts those who worked vacuum-side of a hull took on a daily basis.

"Clamp your safety harness to any handle on the Moebius and hang on," said the Major as he suited up.

Lancaster shrugged into his suit wondering who in the military was 12 feet tall and had a circumference so large they had their own Lagrange Point. He tried fastening up his suit, but eventually let the Major suit him up and clamp him to the radome.

On closer inspection the radome appeared to be just a big dish with an OZ logo on it and the word Tallgeese stencilled on the back. With a start, Lancaster realised that the 'radome' was the shield from the Tallgeese. It would knock off the balance and overall performance but would be impervious to almost any attack ZAFT could throw at it, short of a ship's main cannons. The shield must have been a spare from the Tallgeese MK.2 left here after the EVE war and never decommissioned probably due to someone listing it under something like miscellaneous or scrap metal.

They cycled through an airlock and were discharged into the main harbour. At the entrance the Archangel had used to enter to the port, could be seen fireballs as MO2's defenders died. Lancaster didn't need to be a combat veteran since he was five to know that It would only be a matter of time before the Blitz reached the Archangel parked in the middle of battle ship alley.

His imoto tapped the throttle and they headed for battle ship alley, passing scores of transports leaving the Archangel. Looking through the windows Lancaster could see technicians and soldiers. Part of him was relieved that they had not tried to evacuate the civilians; another part was revolted at soldiers abandoning civilians like that.

Reaching the Archangel Lancaster detached himself from the Moebius and attached himself to the railing next to the airlock so he could help the XO and Murrue inside.

"How long do you need to leave port?" asked his imoto, her voice buzzing with all the junk kicked onto the airwaves by combat.

"Ten minutes," replied the Major.

"I will see what I can do," said his imoto as she turned her Mobious around and opened the throttle.

"Don't be a hero," Lancaster called out. Last thing he heard on the radio before the static drowned it out, was his imoto laughing.

Damn it, he thought, as he flung himself into the Archangel; he needed to get to the Strike. His imoto was in a glorified tug-boat up against a Gundam-class Mobile suit. He didn't wait for the chamber to fully pressurise, but rather he overrode the airlock controls and launched himself thought the door, against the force of the on-rushing air, ripping his way out of his normal suit as he bounded down the corridor. No more little girls and their dogs were going to die.

He reached the hangar only to find no mobile suit. Had they moved it? Was it on one of those shuttles? The sound of the Strike being loaded with equipment saved the Commandant from committing suicide by Lancaster.

Lancaster kicked off for the catapult, slammed his hand down on an override to halt the launch as he reached the hatch.

"Launch aborted by catapult crew," said Kira's female friend, as Lancaster hoped he was not too late, forgetting completely about his arm.

0o0o0o0o0o

Nicol shot down another two Moebius, one of which smashed into what looked like a control tower. A third, with a radar dome on one engine pod, charged him as if on a kamikaze run. Knowing that if he struck it dead on, the debris would still hit his depleted armour, Necal aimed his beam sabre to slice off the engine pod with the radar dome. Only then did he realise, as it spun to take the blow on the raydom, that it was a Leo's shield with an OZ emblem on it. The Moebius then whirled on its axis, deploying a beam sabre from the other engine pod which sliced into the Blitz's shoulder armour, and clipped the V-fin.

Nicol staggered back, giving him a brief moment to look at the damage the surprise attack had caused. Thankfully it was minor, only catching the edge of the shoulder and not even penetrating far enough to affect the sensor package in the V-fin.

The Moebius came in again, spinning at the last moment to cut him with the sideways-facing beam sabre. Nicol blocked the strike despite its speed, and was able to push the much lighter craft back. This was a mistake as the Moebius twisted around until Nicol was looking down the barrel of its linear cannon, which fired. The shell of course could not penetrate the phase-shift armour, but its impact almost deafened Nicol and disorientated him.

Backing off after the second surprise attack from the Moebius, Nicol evaluated his enemy. He was using the small mass of his craft to spin faster than what his much heavier mobile suit could match. However, light weight had its disadvantages too, thought Nicol firing his Gleipnir at the Moebius, which was coming in for another attack.

Just as planned, the Moebius took the blow on the shield, and used the momentum to spin around and snap off a shot at Nicol. However, Nicol had expected this, and had already raised his shield to take the impact, using it to spin his mobile suit. Too late the Moebius realised that the Gleipnir which was only slightly lighter than it, was attached to its shield. Nicol spun the Moebius around and around, his greater mass and firm grip preventing it from escaping until he judged it to be moving faster than its ability to brake, and launched it at a nearby Drake class.

Almost out of nowhere came a blue Gleipnir, smaller than the one on Blitz, which grabbed the Moebius by the shield, stopping it before it collided with the Drake.

0o0o0o0o0

"Relena always said Heeros will turn up just when they are needed the most," said his imoto her eyes unfocussed.

"Affirmative, land on the Archangel, we are leaving," he said fighting the urge to call the Blitz his enemy. That would no doubt lead to another loss of control, something he didn't need during a mobile suit fight in a phone-booth.

"Ok," said his imoto looking unsure. "You are coming back this time Ani?"

"Affirmative," said Lancaster re-evaluating his opponent, who was only now coming to a stop. Impressive moves, but no Gundam should have taken a hit from a glorified tug boat. All he had to do was remember not to try to shoot down the Gleipnir with his head Igelstellung that didn't work last time, and he would be fine, close-combat was his speciality.

Lancaster tried to push the throttle open, only then remembering his arm was still under his bunk; switching hands he opened the throttle. He ran through his options; if all he needed to do was survive, he could keep manoeuvring around and refusing to engage, but that left him on the defensive, which conceded the initiative to the enemy. No, not his enemy, his... opponent; yes, treat this like a fencing match; he could do that.

The Blitz blocked his charge; Lancaster frantically switched controls, only just catching the Blitz counter-thrust.

Lancaster knew that many considered him the best mobile suit pilot who had ever lived, or still lived as the case maybe but he knew he was weak, and that he was too weak to do close combat with one hand. He needed to put some distance between him and the Blitz before his weakness killed him and he failed his mission. No, damn, he needed to think straight like he did as a civilian. His life had value to him now DAMN IT! He was not some kid who dropped into earth's atmosphere not caring if he died; she would never forgive him, nor would his imoto.

HE, WAS, GOING, TO, SURVIVE!

Lancaster launched his Panzer Eisen at the Blitz, which reciprocated by firing its Gleipnir; both collided in a shower of sparks, but Lancaster was already on the other weapon controls, and had the Strike reaching back for a beam boomerang.

"Launch preparations complete, return to the Archangel," said one of Kira's friends; he needed to find out her name.

"Rodger RTB," said Lancaster winding his Panzer Eisen back into its holster and firing it behind him.

0o0o0o0o0

Nicol made a lunge at the Strike, but its Gleipnir attached itself to the legged ship's superstructure, and the Strike was yanked away. Nicol charged after it, this was his opportunity to finish it off; the pilot had not been fighting with the same precision as during the last battle, only able to do a single task at a time, a sure sign of fatigue. He had lost friends during the raid on Heliopolis and was not going to lose anymore to that suit, not Yzak with his bad attitude and insults, not Dearka with his wit and gung-ho attitude to everything, nor Athrun. Athrun was still hurting from the loss of his mother and all of his squadron mates, Nicol could almost feel the grief from the other pilot, his heart was bleeding.

A Nelson-class next to Nicol exploded, showering his suit with debris.

"NICOL!" yelled Athrun.

"I am ok," said Nicol looking at his power gauge; 2 minutes of combat power. He needed to leave the rest up to Athrun.

"I am heading back," said Nicol before he was hit by the debris of a Drake class.

"This place is going up; I must have hit a fuel dump," said Athrun.

0o0o0o0o0

Mariemaia tried to turn around to kick the hatch open in the universal method of fixing anything designed to survive re-entry. She needed a bigger cockpit, the Moebius was as roomy as a ball-turret on a B-16 and she was 6.6 feet tall.

One would think that the destruction of MO2 would affect her; it did, just not in the way one would think. To her the base had never been a symbol of her father; the bits from the Tallgeese and Leos she had attached to her Moebius were all the man had left behind in that place. Not even the soldiers she had talked to, who had served alongside her father, held it in high regard. They thought it should have been destroyed as a final symbol of war. But symbols can be twisted, and MO2 like her, had been twisted into a symbol that her father would not have been proud of. At one time they had called it the most powerful space station, and thanks to her father, Milliardo and her Ani, it was simply the most powerful by being the only military space station. And now it was gone and so, for a time, she was free from others' political manipulations. She might be able to make a difference now, she was not just some grunt whom commanders could pass around for political favours, and if her father watched over her she could finish what he started, war! By all accounts he was, after all her freedom had come with her reunion with her Ani, someone who she knew could scare the world into dropping its guns and capitulating with his every demand, or risk annihilation. The boy who took her to the park could not and would not carry it out, but they didn't know that, some symbols could be miss interpreted and the Gundams where often depicted as monsters.

A thunk on the outside of the hatch told her that the flight-deck crew were familiar with jammed cockpit hatches, and with a clunk it opened. Peering down at her was a surprisingly familiar face, one that explained why her Ani was fighting.

"Hallo Kira Yamato, how's your mother? I heard she got a job in Orb, and how's Athrun getting on these days? The two of you were impossible to separate as kids," she said pushing herself out of the cockpit and stretching her sore back.

A/N

I know I will get asked this because I have been vague on it but this is not a Lancaster x Mariemaia fic. Yes I see the potential relationship there but they are set up as having a relationship of brother and sister, so no. Maybe next time but not in this series, and then they won't be calling each other brother and sister; that would just be creepy.

Also I don't believe Mariemaia was crippled by the bullet. No, it would give her a nasty scar, but chances are she would be able to walk again. Sure we have seen her in a wheelchair; I am not surprised as she was probably still not fully healed, and walking would aggravate her wound, especially if she was hit in a lung, which from the angle looks probable.

So how did you like OZ-MA2 Tallgeese MK.4? I have seen all these mobile suits people have made for OCs, and I wanted to try something different involving a Moebius. Yes it was going to be another piece of junk Moebius, but I have given it a Leo sword and shield, fitting for Mariemaia.

I am going to have a little section where I talk about the battles in GS and GSD which although more realistic and in greater detail than Wing, show a complete lack of understanding for naval, armoured and infantry warfare, as well as air to air combat, with some battles appearing to be, "there's the enemy, zerg rush them!" However the battle for Artemis could really happen. In show, Nicol hit Artemis when they thought they were invulnerable, because ZAFT didn't bother attacking them before. When Yazk and Dearka came in, someone hit something big and bye-bye space station. The defenders didn't have a chance; it takes a long time to get aircraft ready to launch for intercepts and with the base able to see enemies coming, CAPs or combat air patrols would have been small. So the Alliance would have had no real fighters in the air at the time, and only a few on standby. Then the ships at port could not fire without risking hitting the harbour itself or another ship. So basically Nicol had a turkey shoot because the base was so 'invulnerable' that no-one was actively defending it. If you want a similar example, Pearl Harbour is the most well known but there are others. At Pearl, defences were low as no-one would dare attack them on a Sunday, and after all, the Japanese were at the other side of the Pacific, and they could see them coming, lest we forget.

I will get on to some of the more egregious examples such as the battle for Orb, which in my mind should have been the biggest turkey-shoot in human history. God damn it, did anyone look at beach assaults at Sunrise? Evidently not, because Orb lost the battle. Oh god, I can rant about that one for a full chapter... or maybe two, depends on how competent I make the EA, or if a sixteen year old girl gets command of Dads Army. No, scratch that, the Home Guard would do better than the Orb Navy. However thankfully, there are more like Artemis which are just big cock-ups, rather than Sunrise not understanding tactics, and a few to which I have to take my hat off as, God damn it, Sun Tzu would be proud.


	5. Chapter four Junius Seven

Chapter 4 Junius Seven

"History is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever."

Marimeia Khushrenada

Kira was perplexed and shocked, he vaguely recognised the woman in front of him and she definitely recognised him, but he could not place her. That covered perplexed, as for shocked, she knew about his friendship with Athrun, who was in ZAFT now, something he just knew was going to get him in even more trouble.

"You don't recognise me do you?" she said smiling as she floated close enough to ruffle his hair.

"Uh... kind of," he replied hesitantly, not wanting to appear rude. This just seemed to amuse her even more.

"Imoto," called Mr Lowe, as he drifted over to the pair.

Kira blinked; did Mr Lowe just call her little sister? He knew a bit of Japanese, it was Orbs national language, even if English was the one everyone used on Heliopolis much to his relief when he first arrived.

"_Ani_," she said smiling, plucking the smaller man out of the air as he arrived, and confirming their sibling relationship.

"I see you have met Kira," said the as-yet-unnamed woman.

Mr Lowe looked at her strangely, "affirmative."

"You are really not much of a conversationalist are you? Well, good to see you again Kira, say hello to your mother if she's around, from me ok?" And with that the unnamed woman catapulted herself to the pilots' locker room, Mr Lowe in tow.

Still baffled by the mysterious woman, he looked down at the Moebius, stencilled in black next to the hatch he had forced open, were the words '**Lt. M. Khushrenada**. The name sounded familiar but Kira could not place it.

O0o0o0o0o0o0o

"You know Kira?" asked her _ani_.

Mariemaia smiled, "yes, his mother helped me walk again," or should I say his aunt, but you already know that and I am not about to say that anywhere someone might hear what advances we really have made in genetic engineering.

"I see," he said relaxing.

She would have to tell him what she knew later, when they were alone, she thought, as she undid her normal suit and hung it in a spare locker. Good thing she brought her own; the ones the quarter master normally had were too small for her. "The captain really let you pilot with one arm?" she asked as she straightened her uniform, hoping the quarter master had some spare.

"I have a cybernetic one, the Marines didn't let me take it," he said fiddling with his sleeve. That was typical of the Marines on MO2, the biggest dumping ground for problem officers. She had only known a handful that were worth their rifle, and that bastard had killed them and blamed it on her.

"I am glad to see you had a plan when you cut off your own arm!" she said sarcastically. She was not going to let him get away with making her believe he had died, her closest brother, the only one she thought would have made it out alive when her other brothers didn't; she had needed him then. At the time her mother had tried to comfort her by saying he had faked it, but for a long time she had thought her mother was lying to her to make her feel better; it hadn't. She felt manipulated again, as she had been, by that bastard of a grandfather before he had crippled her.

Anger, regret, apologetic, those were the emotions she expected to see in her _ani__'s_ eyes. What she did see however, was fear, panic. She had to look again to make sure what she thought she was seeing, but it was no mistake; Gundam 01 was absolutely terrified, why?

"How..." her _ani_ swallowed and started again, "how much do you know?" There was a definite tremor in his voice.

She chewed her lip, "more than I can say here," she said. This seemed to distress him further and he was trying to grab a hold of himself as if he was on the edge, but why? That had been 16 years ago, and she knew a lot more about him that was more dangerous, such as who he was, and what made him tick; that could get a whole country invaded. It wouldn't be like all that political manoeuvring the Alliance had been trying, only to find that the politician who suggested it had to sleep on the couch for a week. You were a no-one in politics until you introduced your spouse to Relena, and she knew every secret you had.

She made a move to put her hand on his shoulder but stopped; she was a brain surgeon by trade and had dealt with brain-damaged patients so she could read the signs that said her _ani_ could become violent at any moment. It always hurt more than the physical pain would if the orderlies didn't restrain the patient. She knew they didn't want to hurt her; their minds were just so broken that they didn't know what was going on and were scared. Seeing that in her _ani__'s_ eyes made her forgive him for abandoning her. She waited until it looked as if he was winning his inner battle before enveloping her _ani_in a hug. Damn, he was shaking, what the hell was going through that head of his? Screw the arm, her _ani_ should be in a hospital not anywhere near a combat zone. She ran through his symptoms like any good med student. There was not much to go on, but if she had to guess right now it would be PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder. That was the most common problem with ex-spec opps, and with his record he had plenty to be traumatised by, but she would need a psychologist to tell her for sure. Psychological problems needed a professional in the field, and she was just a brain surgeon.

Mariemaia felt guilty about tricking her _ani_ in to ordering her to bug out in his currant state, even if it was for the greater good, it made her feel like she was no better than her bastard of a grandfather. She knew that he would never let anything happen to her, and to protect her, he would have to sortie in the new Gundam either defeating all enemies or ordering her to retreat. He didn't have a clear picture of what was happening outside the base as she did, so would have to presume the worst. If he had done something as crazy as taking out the ZAFT presence, then he would have ordered her to the rear to guard the Archangel, at which point she would have developed a fault and landed. Mu would probably catch on but she knew she could rely on one of her few true friends to back her up.

His breath seemed to steady so she released him, "come on, let's get your arm and talk to the captain," she said gently, leading him to the inner door; he didn't protest.

It didn't take them long to move to the crew quarters where the civilians were billeted. Her _ani_ had been placed in a ratings bunk, not much, but there were plenty spare. All the time she watched him and the reactions of those around them; most people were relieved to see him, but wary of her, and they didn't look at her the same way. She scanned the crowd but didn't recognise any former OZ soldiers or their next of kin she might have met. Her _ani__'s_ face was very revealing. Most people just saw the blank expression and thought he was an emotionless drone, but that was just a mask, and, like a mask, the eyes were the only visible part of the man beneath. To her his eyes were wary but not hostile, as if he wanted to keep his distance, however they would soften when he spotted a young child. This was not a green light on the mental health test, but he was not as uptight as he had been in the locker room.

"I better take you to see the captain, see what happens from here," her _ani_ said as he slipped his arm back on. She could not find anything in his voice to hint at his thoughts, as he just used his usual emotionless flat tone.

She nodded her assent and followed him down the spacious corridors. Most ships were built around the concept of firepower, armour, and speed, with crew being an afterthought. Whoever dreamed up the Archangel however, had thought of the crew which was nice of them just as long as it didn't mean they skimped on any of her main components as a warship, especially armour as most ships had since the EVE war.

"Captain Lowe and Lieutenant Khushrenada to the briefing room," came a young girl's voice over the intercom, the same one which had directed her to land. Not the smoothest landing she had ever had, but the kid had been calm and when all hell was breaking loose, a calm voice was sometimes all you needed to get back home.

There was another thing she should not mention, 'Captain' Lowe was now 'Lieutenant Colonel' Lowe, due to being listed as KIA and receiving a two rank promotion as per normal traditions in the military. The funny thing was that being alive would not get him demoted as Captain John Geary found out after Grendel, where he had been a Lieutenant Colonel. Come to think of it her _ge ge_ would be a one star General, if he was still alive that is.

Her _ani_ got into a lift and pressed a button making the elevator ascend. She gave up trying to work out the route that they had taken, she would find out eventually but not now.

"Captain Lowe and Lieutenant Khushrenada reporting as ordered," said her _ani_ not bothering to salute; that didn't mean she would forget the gesture, she needed to make a good and lasting impression.

The Captain looked up from a plot and returned her salute, "Captain Lowe you said you had experience with salvage, have you got any experience with mining equipment?"

"Affirmative," said her _ani_, his one word answer making her wonder what he did really know about mining; had that been where he had been hiding for all these years? Some former Winner Corporation mine now owned by a smaller consortium out on the fringes of UESA territory?

"Good, we didn't get resupplied by Artemis and we're running low on water. I will leave it up to you and the Chief," said the Captain looking back at the plot.

Warships used water as their main fuel; it didn't burn or react with anything worthwhile, which in a warship was a plus. However it could be broken down using electrolysis and turned into hydrogen and oxygen which could be reacted together or turned into Hydrogen peroxide and oxygen. It did the same job in the end of providing propulsion for a warship.

"This is the only place we can locate any water that's drifting in space," said Mu gravely.

"Do we have enough water to get there?" said her _ani_; even his eyes were unreadable.

"If we start rationing the crew's supply then we should be ok," said the Captain. That alarmed Mariemaia; normally when water was low in a ship the crew's supply was protected by recycling it and dehumidifying the air, but in extreme cases that would go into fuelling the ship. That was normally the last log on ghost ships.

"Very well Skipper is there anything else?" asked her _ani_, not giving out any clues that she could read.

"No, you're excused Captain Lowe, Lieutenant can you stay for a moment," said the Captain.

Mariemaia knew what this was about and was glad her _ani_ was not there; he had enough to deal with without knowing what the government had been doing.

"We received your file when the soldiers linked the Archangel's computer with Artemis's mainframe. Is there anything you want to add?" asked the Captain tentatively. She knew why the Captain was careful; they were the same rank and discipline matters could be awkward under normal circumstances. It didn't help she had not been accused of some minor offence.

She wondered how that information had been downloaded, then remembered that just being allies didn't mean that their computers worked together. No doubt someone had hit the wrong button and started synching the ship's computer with the base rather than uploading the ships mainframe.

"System malfunction, Sir," she said simply. Saying she had been set up would be hard to prove, considering the man who had found out what had happened to her had officially died multiple times. Her mother had once said that heaven didn't want him and hell was too scared he would take it over and trick it into becoming heaven. He was trying to fix the former, but didn't deny the latter was plan B.

"In both the missile and manoeuvring computers?" asked Mu sceptically. He must have guessed that something was up, but she could not tell him now without weakening her case with the other two officers.

"You will see from the report I had punched out after losing control of my craft and the missile was fired after I was clear," she said. She didn't want to remember the hours she had spent floating there because the search and rescue craft had been too scared to come close. They had been afraid that her disabled Moebius might start shooting up another transport, as well as the one full of her only friends on the station.

"Very well you are assigned to Major La Flaga's wing until further notice. Your collaterals will be," said the Captain pausing to look at a data slate. That was strange, she had expected to have a fight on her hands. Was this another officer trying to get a quick promotion by gaining her favour?

"Medical; we don't have a proper ships doctor, we have a civilian doctor filling in the role right now, see what you can help with and," she paused again to look at her data slate. "How much experience did you gain from your penal duties?" She asked.

She had been made to work in a repair bay for long hours with a guard watching over her, not pleasant at the best of times, but it had been made worse when they had made her the one to clean out the wrecks of body parts from the previous occupants. There was one up side to it all, she had been able to learn about how to replace whole sections of her Moebius. She had wanted to rebuild her Moebius but her welding had forced her to rely on moonshine to get the shield and beam sabre added.

"I can do some basic repairs, my welding is substandard however," replied Mariemaia honestly. She needed this woman's cooperation, and honesty bread loyalty as well as trust. In the future she might need some freedom with her actions, so building trust with the 'Skipper' could only work to her advantage.

"Very well you can help out in the hangar, talk to Chief Murdoch. Unless there's anything you wish to add, that will be all. Talk to the quarter master about getting a bunk," said the Captain.

"Thank you Ma'm," she said saluting, and waited for a second before the Captain remembered that she was supposed to dismiss her.

0o0o0o0o

After Lieutenant Khushrenada left, Murrue turned around to face Major La Flaga and Ensign Badgiruel with a quizzical look. "So, what do you think?" It didn't really matter with the crew shortages, what anyone thought, they needed the man power and the Lieutenant came with her own boots.

"Don't worry about her, I told you she's always polite but a bit cool to most people in authority, too many of them are playing political games for her to trust any of them. As long as you treat her like everyone else then she won't be an issue. Word of warning, if she starts coming out with conspiracies, she's just trying to mess with you. Once she told me she knew who killed that pacifist colony leader, you know the one, Heero Yuy," said Major La Flagger smiling. His smile turned to a frown as if he had just caught onto something, then he waved it off as if it was nothing.

"I think we should look more carefully at her friendly fire incident," objected Ensign Badgiruel. She had stayed unusually silent during the interview, Murrue had learnt over the last few days since Heliopolis went down, that Badgiruel would speak her mind and stick to regs like they were the holy gospel of how the world was, rather than a guide line. Despite this the woman knew her job very well; Murrue suspected that she was on the fast track to getting her own command.

She had a right to object, that was too simple an answer for the loss of 15 Marines and a shuttles crew, and she didn't appear to show much remorse or grief over what had to have been a tragic accident at best.

"I will keep an eye on her and besides we don't have much choice in the matter with the number of officers we have," said Mu, the last part almost directed at her. Was that some sort of hint? If so, she had got it without the hint, so she could pat herself on the back. Murrue was getting a handle on the people side of being a ship's Captain, now all she needed to do was get the ship part of it right, and they could get to friendly territory and someone more experienced could takeover.

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Water! Water!"

"Oh boy," sighed Miriallia. He knew her name now, and everyone else's. The boy choking was Tolle, the redhead who had half deafened him was Flay Alster. Her father had worked alongside Relena before she had pulled the Sanc Kingdom out from the Alliance. The blonde boy getting food from the canteen was Sai Argyle her boyfriend, and the boy next to him was Kuzzey.

His _imalto_ laughed as Miriallia gave her boyfriend her water who gulped it down and started coughing.

"It's not funny especially under the circumstances," said Sai as he sat down next to Flay.

"Who's joking? Give me a break," demanded Tolle doing a good imitation of Duo.

Lancaster just sighed; Duo was the only frame of reference he had for these kids, but even that had not prepared him for their maturity level.

"What's wrong? Is there a problem?" asked Sai. Lancaster looked up at the two teenagers in front of him that were now the centre of attention. He also noted that they were several seats down from where they had started.

"It's just, with all these water restrictions I was not allowed to take a shower yesterday," said Flay in a rush, her cheeks were red.

Lancaster groaned, nothing Duo had ever done could prepare him for this. Maybe if he and the others had had a normal childhood and life, he would be able to laugh and chat with these kids, but right now their antics just annoyed him. To think in a few days he would have to lead them out on a mining expedition to wherever that big ice berg was and get them back alive.

A tingling between his shoulders made him realise that everyone was looking at him.

"And just when did you last wash?" asked Flay in a clipped tone.

"Heliopolis," he replied.

"Phew," said his _imalto_ holding her nose and waving a hand in front of her as if to word off the smell. "You can't half tell. At least you got changed, just where did you find a green tank top and shorts?"

"The gym; it's standard PT kit and there's plenty of it," Lancaster said. He knew from experience what stores on a ship had them; it saved money on getting clean clothes if he just procured them on site along with guns and ammo.

"And it just so happens to be the same as you wore during the EVE war," said his _imalto_ doubtfully.

"PT kit has not changed since the EVE wars," he said not wanting to be reminded of the war.

"You have been wearing the same PT kit since the EVE war?" asked the Major as he entered the mess with Kira.

Ignoring the laughter of both the Major and his _imalto_, Lancaster looked around them to Kira, noting that Flay and Sai were now sitting next to one another. "Anything happen with the Strike?" he asked.

"The Chief shut down the wash bays, so I didn't get much done," said Kira.

Lancaster nodded, he knew it was coming and had already prepared for it. "Major, I am going to inform the Captain that the Strike is out of action until we can get water to clean it. There's too great a risk of something breaking otherwise. That means that your wing will be the only CAP we have."

"You didn't answer my question," said the Major seemingly oblivious to the gravity of the situation.

Lancaster glared at the Major as he clamped down on his anger. He was having enough trouble not being that monster without being reminded of the war. "Drop it," he said finally, surprised his glare had not breached the hull.

The Major smiled, "I will let it go if you tell me that story about how you helped Mariemaia's parents to meet."

Lancaster hid his expression; that had been the operation on which he had lost the nearest thing he had to a father. He might have gained a little sister but it was still a painful memory.

"Come on, it's a good war story, and its one you can tell without the government silencing you," said his _imalto_ smiling at him in that way that had got her the sweet jar cunningly placed too high for her to reach.

Lancaster melted, he really didn't have a choice in the matter; she might be 27 now but when she did that, he saw her as the 8 year old girl he had taught to play basketball in a wheelchair.

"My father had a job on colony X-18999; some revolutionaries didn't have the expertise to pull off a coup, with the old Alliance command structure still intact. The revolutionary leader was a man named Quinze, the same Quinze who was second in command of the White Fang. Back then he was just as ambitious as he was in Fang, but not as competent. The only thing that stopped the coup from being a massacre, was the even worse state of the Alliance forces. The revolutionaries managed to steal eight Tragos, then split their forces to take multiple objectives. The only unit that didn't lose its head was a group of Special's cadets and their instructor, who got hold of some Leos and started a counter attack," Lancaster said, pausing to let his imolto step in.

"My father was in charge of that unit, and the girl running intel was a certain Lucrezia Noin, she was one of the best pilots OZ ever had second only to Zechs."

It had been a rather nasty surprise to hear that his friend had been his target, but they had been enemies back then, and she had forgiven him in a letter from Mars, the last message he had got from her before she had been killed. It was odd how someone had struck her and Zechs all the way out at Mars, at the same time as they had hit him and the others. Whoever was after them back then, had been big and very well organised; problem was that description didn't fit any group 16 years ago other than the UESA, which was being held together by her, so that ruled them out.

"The Specials cut off the rebel forces one by one, as they split to hit their objectives, or as they moved through the city using intelligence co-ordinated from their Forward Command Centre. It was obvious that the Specials Command Centre was the lynchpin of the whole defence. My father had his objective, the overall Commander of the Alliance forces, so I took the Specials," said Lancaster, pausing to take a bite of something blue and fairly tasteless.

"Hold on a minute," said the Major, "if this is before Mariemaia was born, then you must have been, what, ten?"

"Seven," Lancaster corrected, getting several surprised gasps from around the table.

"Seven," the Major corrected himself then continued, "and you took on an OZ Command Centre by yourself?"

"I could handle it," said Lancaster. Was the Major doubting his abilities?

"Well you're alive so you must of," Mu agreed grudgingly.

"I used smoke from the battle to get in range with a rocket launcher; I only had one shot, the ammo was too heavy for me to carry, and if I had missed it would be all over anyway. A Leo was far enough back to see what was going on; it didn't fire, not wanting to shoot a kid, or just out of ammo, I don't know. All I know is that he was good; he got between me and my target as I fired, and took the rocket on his frontal armour. At that range, there was no question of it not penetrating to the fighting compartment. I didn't stick around to see what had happened; the rebels were falling back in disarray, and the Alliance was finally starting to mobilise. It was time to cut our losses and run," Lancaster said, taking a sip of water to cover up that he didn't know how to continue. Sure, he could say that when he rendezvoused with his father, he was bleeding out on the floor from a gunshot wound to the chest, but he didn't want to go into that.

"Nice story, but I thought this was about how Mariemaia's parents met?" said the Major as he tried the blue thing on his plate.

His _Imoto_ picked up there, somehow knowing he didn't know how to continue. "My father was the Leo pilot, he was in a bad way, those Leos didn't have the armour of a linear tank and tended to burn if hit by anything heavier than an old NATO round. Noin managed to keep enough of her wits about her to call an ambulance, but not enough to call in a CASEVAC. He ended up in a hospital run by the Barton Foundation where my mother was a nurse."

Lancaster ducked the unidentified blue object that flew past his head and impacted the wall behind him. "That's how Captain Lowe helped your parents to meet, by almost killing your dad with an RPG?" asked the Major after coughing up the rest of the blue food.

His _imalto_ shrugged, "one of the most normal things that happened to my family; it took them two weeks to figure out that my father had been transferred to a civilian hospital, one of which he spent out like a light. When they did find out, they sent him back to earth for treatment."

"Well that's other thing that's still the same from OZ, admin still can't tell where its ass is," said the Major, giving his _Imoto _a curious look to which she nodded, causing him to burst out laughing. "No wonder my charm and stunning good looks didn't work on you!"

"Yes, well my mother did warn me about your type," she replied coolly.

"Must have been your other mother then, or she would have chased me off long ago," laughed the Major.

0o0o0o0o0

The briefing went better than expected, everyone knew the dangers of vacuum from living on a colony, and some had even passed their shuttle licences, or had played around with tugs and knew what to do. Paring the most inexperienced kid with senior enlisted, helped ensure they had someone on hand to keep an eye on them. It was just how they did things back at the mines; the experienced people guided those new to the environment, so they lived long enough to become experienced themselves and help other new arrivals.

This trip they would be surveying the area and grabbing some samples. They needed to see if there were any contaminants in the water. He also wanted to see how well his people would cope with the task.

"Tug one ready for launch," said Lancaster as he checked the status of the other tugs.

"Tug two, we are good to go," said Dalida.

"Tug three ready," said Romero.

"All tugs green light, exit the bay in order," said Miriallia as the catapult door opened. They were not going to use the catapult itself, but depressurising the whole hangar deck would have taken longer.

Outside the ship the small convoy met up with its escorts.

"Tallgeese IV holding hands," said his _imalto_, giving the call that she was in formation with the convoy. Nominally she was their escort, but her beam sabre would save time in cutting samples off the big ball of ice, as everyone was calling it. The beam sabre was originally based on mining equipment used to cut through asteroids, no-one had considered them a viable weapon until some miners rebelled against the old alliance and inflicted heavy casualties with their labourers. It had been child's play to tweak the settings to narrow the beam, and reduce the power output to something capable of cutting through water. He had done the same job on Heliopolis because someone had used the wrong setting for the rock they were cutting, again.

"Very cute, make sure your brother looks left and right before crossing the road," was the Major's response. He was out ahead and above the convoy weaving back and forth scanning for threats.

"I think someone is jealous," replied his _Imalto__._

"Not at all," said the Major in a light hearted tone that almost suggested the opposite. Lancaster had inquired about his _Imalto__'s _relationship with the Major, only to be told straight that the two where old friends and nothing more.

Morale was good if banter like that was being exchanged. They never had the time or the inclination during the EVE war, but back then stuff like morale was linked to morality and they each knew they were doing the right thing.

The debris belt was its usual hazardous self, formed from wrecked craft, spent rockets, dead satellites and waste illegally dumped. It was one of the worst areas to fly in, in space barring a fleet engagement or a gravity well.

"God in heaven," whispered his _Imalto_ as they approached where the sensors had located 'the big ball of ice'.

"Say again, I didn't copy," said the Major.

Lancaster felt the cold of vacuum creep into the tug's hull as he saw what his _Imalto_ had seen; a dead colony drifting in front of him, Junius Seven, the only PLANT class colony to be lost. He had speculated about what the big ball of ice was, water was too valuable to be something tossed out of an airlock. It could have been that water from damaged or destroyed ships had gathered here, as objects with large mass tended to do. He had never considered that it was a dead colony, because something that big would have been tracked in case someone rammed the Earth with it. That last thought seemed to freeze his lungs, what if they could not track it, what if the alliance scanning arrays had been hit by ZAFT during the war, would anyone in the alliance be watching out for meteors?

Lancaster undid his helmet clamps and got a barf bag out from under his seat, what if that was the whole point? After he and the others had alerted the earth to the threat of an attack like Meteor, it was impossible. That was unless you hit the orbital tracking system, and if you did, people would know why you had done it and start guarding all possible threats until the systems were back online. However if they had been hit during a war where enemy ship movements were more important, then who would be watching out for this?

The attack on the ESUN was to get those who might be aware of Meteor and stop it out of the picture. The point of the attack on Junius Seven was to acquire a large object to drop on the Earth, and the N-Jammer counter-attack was to blind the earth sensor net. All they now needed was five Gundams to wreak havoc on the earth, to take people's minds off space and closer to home. There were two spanners in the works, first She lived, and She knew more about Meteor than anyone else alive thanks to Lancaster, the second, the Gundams built were split between ZAFT and the earth, thanks to Kira.

"Mr. Lowe are you ok?" asked Kira next to him, concerned but pale himself.

"Affirmative," Lancaster replied, wiping his face. He could not freeze up now, he had a mission; lives depended on him.

"All teams, new course, up one three degrees, port five," Lancaster ordered over the radio.

"What's happening people?" asked the Major sounding concerned.

"Course correction was made to avoid Junius Seven," replied Lancaster.

The radio was silent for over a minute before the Major acknowledged the report.

Thankfully the water was located around the edge of the colony where it had vaporised then frozen. It had been super-heated by the nuclear fission and low pressure of space, then frozen as it cooled down in the shade of the colony. Lancaster didn't want to venture into the colony proper; there would be a lot of dead, 243,721 men, woman and children. The children would be the hardest to see, he didn't know if they would been frozen in place from the exposure to vacuum, burnt to a crisp by the nuclear initiation or covered in cancerous tumours from the radiation, but he would be having nightmares about it tonight. He knew what nuclear weapons did to their victims, he had been in charge of them sometimes. It had been mainly Chang's job, and Lancaster had been a bodyguard for his _imalto_ or Her. However he had been trained up on their use, which had included desensitising him to their effects, that hadn't worked.

The work was done in silence, everyone caught up in their own thoughts. Some checked their Geiger counters normally used to measure how much radiation the user had got from the sun, periodically as if afraid of getting an overdose of radiation.

"Eh, sir, should we be doing this?" asked Kuzzey over the radio.

Lancaster was going to answer but hesitated, they shouldn't, this was a war grave, but if they didn't then they would run out of water and the alliance didn't have any ships nearby to resupply the Archangel.

The Major stepped in, saving Lancaster the dilemma of answering the question. "They won't be needing it and we need it to stay alive." He gave the excuse used by senior non-coms to strip bodies of water, ammo and bandages.

That seemed to mollify Kuzzey along with his _imalto_ cutting off a section of the ice with her beam sabre.

0o0o0o0o

Kira felt ill, not because of the no doubt high dose of radiation he had just received from standing that close to where a nuclear bomb had been detonated, but because he had been that close to where a nuclear bomb had detonated. He knew Mr Lowe felt the same way, even worse, judging by the now full sick bag tied down behind their seat.

"This is zero, be advised I have a ship wreck; looks recent. Keep your eyes peeled for hostile contacts," said Mu over the radio.

"Tug one, confirm warning," said Mr Lowe, his voice devoid of all emotions.

"Tallgeese, I can't see all the tugs. The convoy is too spread out, can everyone bunch up?" asked Mariemaia. Kira still had no idea how she knew his name.

"Can't do anything about that, the debris is too thick," said Mr Lowe, he and Kira were in the middle of the convoy, ready to help out anyone in trouble. Romero was in front and Dalida was behind them.

"Roger that; got an id on the ship?" asked Dalida.

"Yeah it's the Silverwind, that cruise liner, my guess would be pirates. No-one is dumb enough to shoot at a Sanc Kindom vessel," said Mu.

"Shit, roger that. Mr Lowe you know anyone from home on her?" asked Dalida.

"Negative," replied Mr Lowe, apparently unmoved by the news, even though his eyes were darting around the instrument panel as if he was scared of something, but this was Mr Lowe, he didn't get scared.

"Just keep your eyes open people, and keep the chatter down to essentials. We don't want who ever shot up the Silverwind to find out there's someone else out here," said Mu.

"Eh sir, what is the Silverwind?" asked Kira, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Was, it was a small cruise liner from Sanc with re-entry capabilities, 150 soles max including crew," said Mr Lowe listing the facts coldly like Wikipedia as he switched the radio to receive only.

After that is was quiet. Mr Lowe was not much of a conversationalist; the only time Kira had been able to find out anything about the man, was that story in the mess a few days ago. A child soldier who had been fighting since he was 7, Kira could not imagine what sort of life the man next to him had been through, but it had not been pleasant. The man's arm was the most visible reminder of that past. On the flip side, he must have got out of that life sometime ago. He didn't look like an alcoholic, nor someone who had a drug addiction, so maybe what happened in the past for Mr Lowe stayed in the past.

Kira was brought out of his musings by Mr Lowe stopping the tug next to a rock.

"Is something wrong?" asked Kira, confused as to why they had stopped.

"Affirmative," said Mr Lowe working the controls to extend one of the tug's arms out past the rock.

Kira reached over to the com panel that had been turned to receive only after Mu's last message. Mr Lowes hand shot out and grabbed his wrist in a vice-like grip, Kira knew it was the man's real arm, not his artificial one, because they had inhibitors in them to stop them from injuring people, or at least the ones his mother worked on did.

"Stay quiet," said Mr Lowe; his eyes were locked onto the screen that showed the camera from the tug's arm. Kira looked as well at first not seeing what had spooked the normally unflappable Mr Lowe, but then he saw it, a purple GINN with several antennae and a really big gun.

Kira tried to reach over to the com panel again but Mr Lowe's grip was too strong. "If we use the radio it will track us," said Mr Lowe his eye still watching the monitor.

The GINN was turning away as if to move on, but then stopped and turned around. The monitor didn't let Kira see what the Ginn had spotted, but the radio chirped into life with Kuzzey's voice. With a sudden realisation, Kira's stomach went into a hard ball. Kuzzey's tug had been behind them, but had caught up when they stopped. Kuzzey had also left his radio on, unheard by the others due to its low volume and interference kicked out by Junius Seven, and now he was close to the GINN, it had heard him.

The Ginn opened fire just as the Tug came into the monitor's field of view. Shots slammed into the trailer, spilling its cargo of large blocks of ice into space.

"Huh? What was that?" asked Kuzzey the question no doubt directed at Dalida, but it came over the radio none the less.

Kira made another lunge for the radio to warn his friend, but Mr Lowe's hand was still around his wrist. He tried to reach around with his other hand but found it was pinned to the armrest by Mr Lowe's elbow.

Kira watched in horror as the ZAFT GINN fired at Kuzzey's craft. Kuzzey was now screaming in panic as the realisation sank in that he was being shot at. He counted one, two, three, four, five, shots before the mobile suit paused. Kuzzey was still screaming in terror, but Mr Lowe still had his hand on Kira's wrist stopping him from calling out. What the bloody hell was he thinking? Kuzzey was in trouble; they needed to help him NOW!

The mobile suit spun to face what Kira perceived as up, firing off four rounds, each resulting in an explosion, one almost on top of the mobile suit. Through the remains of the last explosion, two shells from a Linear Gun burst into sight, only to bounce off of the mobile suit's front armour. This was followed closely by a Moebius that sped past in a blur of white, grey and pink. The GINN's head followed it as it was removed from its body.

Kira felt a jerk, and realised Mr Lowe was no longer holding him back, instead, he was working the controls of the utility craft and moving them out of cover, bringing them alongside Kuzzey's craft.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Mariemaia didn't release the throttle even when she was past the mobile suit. She had missed; she had been aiming for the centre of mass, nothing fancy like a head shot that would only annoy the pilot, and if she recognised the unit, the co-pilot as well.

She thought about turning around and having another shot with her beam sabre, but the rounds slamming into the debris around her made her decide otherwise.

"Tallgeese to Zero I am engaged by the Sliverwind, need back up ASAP."

"Roger, ETA 90 seconds, number and type?" requested Mu.

"One GINN looks like a long range recon type."

"Can you lose him?"

She thought about that for a split second; it was wishful thinking on both their parts. A Moebius maybe small and nimble, but a mobile suit had a better mass to thrust ratio, and were therefore more manoeuvrable and better at acceleration, top speed didn't matter in space. Her Moebius was not a regular line issue, but had been originally four Moebius and the Tallgeese, which didn't help here as it was heavier than the standard craft and didn't have the thrusters to offset its additional weight. The suit on her tail was gaining slowly, it had a lot of ground to catch up, but it was starting to close the distance, which meant she had lost all her advantages in this fight.

"Negative," she said, willing more power out of her craft.

"Ok I can see you, head straight for Junius Seven," said Mu.

"Roger," she said, not looking around for Mu's position. He was a professional and a damn good pilot, so she trusted his ability to set up an ambush. Instead of worrying about what Mu was up to, she concentrated on the threat behind her, and avoiding debris like the large rock in front of her.

She pulled back on the stick to clear the obstacle, and as she passed it she fired a grappling wire, and used the debris to sling-shot herself onto the course to which Mu had directed her.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Iwa Roimata cursed as the Moebius pulled off an unexpected manoeuvre that trashed her shot, and made her almost lose track of it. These damn fucking pirates scum were going to die. They had stumbled onto this little operation near the corpse of Junius Seven, those bastards must have been going through the pockets of the dead or looting a bank, pathetic but that was pirates for you.

It was now obvious what had happened to the Sliverwind. They had stumbled upon this merry band of pirates mid-operation, and had been attacked; so much for using a neutral ship. Not everyone cared about such things. The damage was consistent with ship-base weapons used by the Alliance. That also fitted, as the desertion rates amongst the Alliance was rising, due to combat casualties, but not many ended up in ZAFT's custody, preferring to be pirates. She had once heard about an Agamemnon-class being used as a pirate ship by its former crew, complete with fighter escort, but she had thought that was propaganda, now she was not sure.

It didn't matter who these guys were, the commander was going to cut them to ribbons when he heard what had happened, like that time some rating had thought he could have his way with the POWs. That had been bloody, and the poor girl had been more traumatised by the level of violence shown to her would-be rapist than by what he had tried to do to her.

"There's another one out there somewhere, can't get a fix on them with all this junk and background radiation," said her Co-pilot Murphy. He was a good kid, but he was a kid, as green as they come and ready to prove that he could take on the world single handed, that's why the Commander had given her the job of looking out for him, until he realised that he was not the Commander. Neither of them got the joke.

"Jam him," she said. They needed to take out their eyes before they could extract. These pirates had done one of the dumbest things she had ever seen, they had turned a Moebius into an AWACS by putting a big dish onto its side. However, despite being the least well-suited craft imaginable for that task, they needed to kill it or get bounced on the way out by its buddies.

Iwa cursed, that Moebius had just spoofed her targeting computer with chaffs and flares, although these would not have been enough to fool her sensor suite, the unusual mass distribution of the Moebius made it turn faster to one side and neither had she nor the computer compensated for it.

"Six o'clock!" was her only warning from Murphy. She didn't think, just reacted kicking the rudder to yaw sideways, and throwing the stick hard right to turn the suit round to take any fire on her front armour. At the same time, below her, Murphy would be using his box of tricks to spoof the enemy's lock. She spotted two orange gun-barrels in front of her, but could not comprehend what they were until she was kicked from behind, as the rear armour was penetrated.

The mobile suit's computer registered the penetration by the two tungsten rounds and catalogued the havoc they wrought on the inside of the suit as they failed to over penetrate, rather they bounced around the inside of the suit, creating a large amount of shrapnel. Sensors around the fuel tanks indicated multiple leaks in both, the fuel temperature sensor spiked, indicating that the leaking fuel had been ignited. The main battery sensors showed damage, along with a power fluctuation that indicated the battery acid was on fire, or was about to catch fire despite the lack of oxygen in the mix, which suggested the oxygen-rich fuel had made contact with the batteries. This data was processed in less than a 100th of a second, and ticked all but the box for fighting compartment breached, in the check list of mobile suit beyond recovery. The problem the computer faced was that it detected both pilots still within the craft and decided to solve this by blowing the hatch, and ejecting both occupants without bothering to check if they were in their normal suits, as it was too late for that. After completing this function, it continued to monitor the damage reports as it activated fire extinguishers to slow down the fire's progress as its program dictated. If it had been ZERO or any sort of AI it would have asked why bother? But it was as far as computers go, dumb, so just followed its programming. If the computer had been any brighter Iwa would have empted a magazine into the tower with the words "DIE YOU MONSTER."

Iwa orientated herself quickly as she detached from her ejector seat; she needed to move fast before the suit blew. Damn it where was the kid? There he was below her and to the right; he had orientated himself, that was good, now they just needed to find some cover before the suit blew either from a self-detonator, or from whatever the computer had perceived to be so bad it had kicked them out automatically.

Scanning her surroundings, Iwa was surprised to see the Moebius from before coming in for a pass. At first she thought the pilot would open fire, she had seen that before. But he didn't, instead it came to a relative stop within ten metres of her. The gesture was obvious; she was given the opportunity to surrender and become a hostage, the alternative was death when her mobile suit blew up. Pirates didn't harm hostages as long as the ransom was paid, and they didn't do anything stupid. So she hooked up.

Murphy tried to run when the Moebius approached him, dumb kid. Iwa grabbed his belt, uncoiled the safety line and hooked him up.

As her suit finally blew, Iwa was able to see the name of the pilot highlighted by the fireball, as sensitive ZAFT equipment burned, '**Lt. M Kushrenada**'. Iwa's only coherent thought was of a little red-haired girl in a wheelchair being shepherded around by the commander to keep her from starting another revolution.

0o0o0o0

Lancaster opened the throttle and ditched the load; they could come back for it later. Now they needed to move fast, and get back to the ship before someone else came along.

"Tug two are you ok?" asked Lancaster as he pulled his tug in alongside the other craft.

"Yeah we are fine, they missed the main hull, just got the cargo," said Dalida.

"Warning shots," Lancaster muttered.

"WARNING SHOTS? THEY BLOODY HIT US-" screamed Kuzzey. Lancaster interrupted him as he started babbling. The kid was scared, being shot at for the first time in your life, where the other guy was out to kill you, not just a ship or base, but you, would do that to people. Only way to stop the kid from being scared was to give him orders and get him moving.

"You can't hear shots fired in space, and pirates kept claiming they did not see the warning shots or hear the broadcast to surrender, in court and got away with it. Dalida are you mobile?" asked Lancaster.

"We are, but I can't drop our load," said Dalida. He sounded calm, which was good if the man had been just as panicky as Kuzzey, then one of them might try and do something stupid.

"Roger; I will get it. Kira, keep an eye out for more hostiles," said Lancaster, as he moved the manipulators to snap the offending coupling.

Tug three called in; it still had its cargo and was almost clear of the debris field.

"There!" yelled Kira.

Lancaster reacted by swinging around to face towards where Kira was pointing. He armed the twin 40mm Gatlin guns as the tug manoeuvred to face Kira's target; rather stupid, as they would bounce off a tug's hull and only give a mobile suit a nice sand-blast. In the process he snapped the coupling that connected tug two with its cargo. At first he didn't see any targets, nothing big enough to be a mobile suit, then he spotted what Kira had seen, a life pod. He was going to have to chew the kid out after this. It dawned on him that the pod was of Sanc design, and there was only one, not a cluster. One very important person had been evacuated whilst the crew fought to save them, or rather her. Lancaster could only think of one person the Sancs would fight for, her!

"We are clear," said Dalida over the radio, but Lancaster ignored him.

With a tap on the throttle, he was in range to grab the pod. If she was really in here, he would be in trouble, but he was not going to just leave her drifting. He had royally messed up at the lunar conference. He didn't even know something was going to happen, and she had almost died, only being saved by going out to take a phone call. So much for 'I will always protect you'. He owed whoever had called her big time.

The manipulators of his Tug grab the pod.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Sir, communication from the Nataku," said the Communication Station Operator. Immediately the FAITH operative was standing over him.

"The legged ship has her," was the message on the display. The operator knew better than to blurt out whatever it said.

Rather than the dread this message should have brought her, she felt relieved. Lacus was alive, and the alliance would find out why picking on the weak was more commonly known as suicide, when one of the boys was around. No; calling him a boy now was rather stupid, as he was in his thirties, but old habits die hard. It would be better if he rescued her, rather than waiting for the Le Creuset team to botch it up again.

She had thought him lost, back when someone had called in an airstrike on the negotiations he had been involved with. But she had found him again, single-handedly holding together a group of suits, tanks and crunches cut off during the First Battle of Victoria. He had been bawling out reds, greens and blacks to rally them, and take charge in the process, all whilst appearing to be a _'junior green pilot'_.

She had contacted him asking what he needed to break back through to friendly lines, only for him to say "I DON'T NEED ANY HELP AGAINST WEAKLINGS LIKE THIS!" which he didn't. According to the official reports he had made Quad Ace in one day, which didn't make a dent in his kill count, but for the first time he got a medal for it. It was funny how no one associated the name with a man who should have died all those years ago; even the Alliance knew his name, and no doubt had photos to go with it, but he had too much stubborn pride to change it.

They had been the last ones out, providing cover for the retreat against an armoured counter-attack. She was technically the last suit out, only because he was dragging her after the legs of her suit had been shot out from under her.

"Send a reply confirming our acknowledgement," she said, flicking out her data slate. She was looking over the intel gathered by the Le Creuset team, on the new battleship the Alliance had built in Heliopolis, when she had been called over. She needed proof for her friends in the council, to get that over-aggressive idiot demoted out of a position where he could do damage. Orb was one step away from all-out war against ZAFT, and he had almost lost all the new Gundams, taking on a pilot trained to handle the new suits.

Suffice it to say Le Creuset had not given a complete report to the council, using their lack of military expertise to perform a Dog and Pony show that had rallied the fence sitters to Zala's side. Unfortunately for him, she had been talking to an old friend at the docks, and had agreed to give him a bottle of Famous Grouse if he would pull all the ships' log data. Thankfully, that had included the logs from both ships and all of the new mobile suits, which had let her construct an OZ-style spec of the Strike.

Fighting ability was somewhere between 140 and 180, but she could not tell if that was pilot ability or not. The quick swap out of weapons would tend towards the higher end of the scale.

Weapon ability was 130 for the sword, 140 for the rifle and shield. Above that of OZ suits and most ZAFT suits, however it could change load-out faster than a ZAFT suit, with what she was calling 'Striker packs'. She made a note to find out if there were any other 'Striker packs' on file for the Strike, possibly a long-range one.

Speed was 140 with the sword, and 160 with the rifle. It was notably faster with the rifle and shield pack, but she would need a lab to figure that out.

Power level was 10, batteries killed the power output and with the energy-heavy load-out of all the striker packs, she figured that the Strike was equipped with a fusion generator, or more likely was running at the edge of its endurance, and would not survive in a prolonged fight.

Armour ability was 200, giving it a better armour rating than a Gundam; that was going to upset the 'boys', but Gundanium could be penetrated by kinetic rounds. Unfortunately, this protection bled off to 40 when facing beam weapons. You wanted to be as electromagnetically neutral as possible, so running a current through the armour made it more susceptible to damage from beam weapons. Only problem was, because of the expense of beam weapons and the lack of any threat worth the cost, they were only used in small numbers outside of warships, and then mainly as anti-ship ordinance. She ignored the fact that if you pushed five times as much energy into the armour at the point of contact as the energy weapon's output, it would block the shot. That would require the power output of a very large fusion reactor which was far too rare and valuable to be used for such an application. If the Alliance deployed these things in numbers, she would recommend breaking out the anti-ship weapons.

Other than that, she had found that the electronics had been built to civilian standards, and were of poor quality at that. They were also susceptible to EMP, a rather poor oversight, but who was she to complain about dumb decisions made by her enemies?

She stopped over the data relating to the Strike; there were several video transmission logs. Had the pilot of the Strike talked to the Le Creuset team? He was a bigger fool than that Le Creuset; well she could use his identity to bribe or blackmail him.

"Athrun?"

"Kira?"

She paused the recording; the first voice was new to her, but the second was Athrun Zala's, and he knew the pilot of the Strike. She could make Mr Zala's life hell, she just needed to find out who that boy was, he looked sort of familiar in the way that a man in the supermarket looks like a old friend, but just has the same hair style and a similar facial structure.

She put the name 'Kira' into a search, as well as the image, hoping he was in their database. While that was running, she picked out the last recording and started watching, this one had been received during the battle where Le Creuset had almost lost the rest of his squadron.

The eyes that bore back at her, were as cold as vacuum, and made her blood turn to ice as if she had just been spaced. She watched the whole thing then watched it again, a buzz told her the search had found a match, but she ignored it for now, watching the recording for a 3rd time. She was going to have to call the Chairman; this was too big for her to handle alone.

"Captain, I need to schedule a high-security communication with the Chairman, top priority," she told the Captain of her flagship before leaving the bridge. She needed to have a full report ready for him, no need for the whole 'your daughter is worth more alive and unharmed to them' speech, at least. Closing the recording, her data slate brought up the search results,

Kira Yamato, coordinator, age 16, last known residence Heliopolis. She stopped reading, after all nothing else was real, she had made sure of that when she had forged their records. She knew why he was fighting again; he had sacrificed too much for Kira, to let that boy end up like him.

This was going to end badly, unless she brought overwhelming force to bear, fast! This could not wait for the Chairman's approval. That's what FAITH did; an independent command that made the hard decisions when contacting high command for approval would take too long. This was a godsend in a navy with a command structure that was so poorly defined; that it often lead to confusion about who was in charge.

She sent a quick message to the rest of task force Twilight-fairy, as she entered her state room, to prepare to get underway immediately, and a second to her flagship's Captain to plot a course to intercept the Nataku.

This was going to be one of those days, like the time some kid broke out of Morgenroete hospital by parachuting out of a 70th floor window... Why was it always one of those days when he was around?

The Captain sent confirmation of his orders, as well as a note that made her curse violently; there was another ZAFT ship that would reach the area ahead of them, even if she left the Laurasia class behind, it was the Vesalius under Le Creuset's command.

A/N

Sorry for the long update, as I have put on my page I am dyslexic, so spelling is a big problem for me, as such I need someone to go over my work before posting, this time our schedule did not fit for some time and nothing happened with this story. So sorry, however I have written parts of the next chapter before this one was completed so next chapter should be a bit faster.

I got a copy of the Gundam Wing Technical Manual, although you can get almost every bit of information online I find it a nice guide and things from it will make its way into the story the OZ style performance ratings was one idea I got when reading it. Don't take Sally's figures to be accurate because I have not worked out how to apply the rating system to all seed suits and she has not got the suit in front of her to test, and some of it will be influenced by the pilots abilities witch throw such a scale off. It also does not help that the scale is rather odd in some of its values such as Epyon and wing have a weapon score of 140 when the wing has a gun, a very big gun. what you should get from the rating is despite the Strikes faults, it's overall better than the old gundams, and if wing popped back up it would get hammered.

As always I would appreciate feedback on what I have done, the good and the bad. The fight seen was easy this time as I went for more of an air to air dogfight than a mobile suit fight in space, so I am hoping that people could follow it but if not please say.


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